94-118, LEIGH ROAD

This is a range of miners' cottages, incorporating shops and an attached institute, built in 1875 for Fletcher Burrows Ltd. Later alterations occurred in the 20th century. Constructed of red brick with a graduated Welsh slate roof, the building is an elongated range. The left end features a tall, gabled, two-storey, five-bay institute, followed by lower two-storey cottages. The cottages have first-floor windows arranged in a rhythm of 3:2:3:2:3:1:1, punctuated by three gabled projections containing shops (numbered 102, 110, and 118).

The institute (numbers 94 and 96) has a plinth and brick sill bands with stone sills to transomed three-light casement windows set beneath segmental arches. A chequered floor band sits beneath a plaque reading ‘ATHERTON COLLIERIES VILLAGE CLUB’. The first floor has four-light windows, and a decorative brick band stretches across the gable, incorporating an oculus with glazing bars within a dentil-edged surround. The building includes truncated lateral stacks, with one rising from a short gabled projection (later ground floor additions are considered of no special interest). The left return, facing School Street, features a blocked, pointed-arched central doorway. Bays 1 and 2 rise as a gable while bay 5 contains a lateral stack with a date plaque reading 'A/1875/D' within a quatrefoil.

The gabled projections housing shops 102 and 110 have shop doors and tall casements divided by piers beneath linked lintels, brick hoodmolds, and bands. Shop 102 has two segmentally-arched casements to the first floor and twin slits in the gable. Shop 110 is taller, including an attic window in the gable. Shop 118 has side buttresses and a central shop door flanked by windows beneath a bracketted canopy, alongside a three-light casement to the first floor and two slits in the gable. The linking cottages have segmentally-arched doors and three-light casements on both floors, separated by a floor band (the cottage at number 96, adjoining the institute, has been altered). Panelled brick ridge stacks are present. The building is included on the list for its group value.