Burnley Mechanics

BURNLEY

SD8332SE MANCHESTER ROAD 906-1/19/88 (North West side) 29/09/77 Burnley Mechanics (Formerly Listed as: MANCHESTER ROAD (West side) Former Mechanics Institute)

GV II*

Mechanics' Institute, now theatre, arts centre. 1854-5, by James Green of Todmorden; enlarged 1888 by William Waddington; altered. Sandstone ashlar, with felted hipped roofs. Palazzo style. Rectangular plan on corner site plus later additions to the left and the rear. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with basements to the rear, a 5-window main range plus a 2-window extension to the left. The symmetrical main range has an emphatically rusticated ground floor, rusticated quoins at 1st floor, a panelled band between floors interrupted by balustraded balconies to the 1st-floor windows, a string course over the 1st floor, a plain frieze and a prominent modillioned cornice enriched with lion-masks. The ground floor has round-headed arcaded openings in 2 sets of 3, all with emphatic rusticated voussoirs and keystones and linked by an impost band, each set composed of a pair of Venetian windows flanking a narrower arch, with a window in the 1st of these, a doorway in the 2nd, and Ionic colonnettes in the Venetian windows, which also have panelled enrichment to the heads. All these windows now have plate glass glazing. The 1st floor has a tripartite window in the centre with a Corinthian architrave and segmental pediment containing richly-carved ornament, flanked by 2 pairs of windows with pedimented Corinthian architraves, all these windows with balustraded balconies. The lower 2-storey extension to the left has a splayed corner and is in generally similar style but with pilastered architraves to the windows, and a wide round-headed doorway adjoining the main range. The right-hand return wall of the main range (to York Street), of 3 bays with a rock-faced basement, has a tetrastyle Corinthian porch in the centre, 3 round-headed windows each side of this, and at 1st floor fenestration similar to the front including a tripartite window in the centre with a Corinthian architrave and segmental pediment. The extension continued to the rear of this, of 3 bays and slightly stepped back, defers to the former by imitating its fenestration but with pilastered architraves.

INTERIOR altered.

Listing NGR: SD8398932409