Wharf Masters House And Toll Office At Manchester Road Canal Wharf

The Wharf Master’s House and Toll Office, now a museum, were constructed around 1850 for the Leeds-Liverpool Canal Company. The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with hipped stone slate roofs. It has a rectangular plan, running parallel to the street, with the toll office forming a projecting angled wing to the left.

The house presents an asymmetrical two-window facade to the street. It has a full basement storey at towpath level. A first-floor sillband and paired stone gutter brackets run along the facade. A central doorway is topped with a bracketed cornice and triangular-headed lintel, leading to a recessed door with a square overlight. One window sits above the door, and one is on each floor to the left; the windows are segmental-headed with keystones and altered glazing. Stone chimney stacks are present on the left and right slopes of the roof, which is gabled to the rear. The three-window return wall to the right has basement windows and a wide entrance to a rear passage. Upper floors feature large two-light windows flanked by one-light windows, with the left-hand windows being sash but the others altered.

The toll office is square, except for a splayed rear corner. It presents one storey to the street, featuring a doorway to the right, a window next to it, and a chimney to the left, all detailed similarly to the house. A four-pane sash window is present on each floor of the left side, along with another at ground floor of the splayed corner. The rear of the toll office has a ground-floor doorway, an upper-floor sash window, and a first-floor doorway to the left, accessed by steps from the house. The interior of the building was not inspected.

The Wharf Master’s House and Toll Office form part of an important group at the canal wharf, including nearby warehouses, a boundary wall, a stable block, and the Manchester Road Canal Bridge.