Public Offices

Public Offices. Built in 1902, extended in 1907, and with late 20th century alterations and additions. Designed by Thomas Muirhead, an architect from Manchester, for the Lytham St Annes Urban District Council. The building is constructed of Accrington red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and detailing, along with gable and eaves chimney stacks capped with mouldings, coped gables, and a slate roof.

The plan is an elongated L-shape, consisting of a symmetrical street-facing range and a long, simply detailed service range to the rear.

The South elevation on Clifton Drive has five bays, two storeys above a basement, and is set behind brick walls with concave depressions supporting railings. The symmetrical frontage has three bays that project forward, with a wide, semi-circular, banded arch to the central doorway, covered by a flat canopy supported on elongated brackets. Flanking the doorway are paired sash windows, with six panes over nine, set on an ashlar cill band and below a moulded string course. The projecting bays are delineated by angled corner shafts, which rest on moulded corbels and terminate in moulded finials to short curved copings. Above the doorway is a wide band of ashlar panels incorporating raised lettering reading ‘PUBLIC OFFICES 1900.’ Above this, there are three sunken bay windows with semi-circular centre lights, separated by banded pilasters. Angled returns lead to the set-back end bays, featuring paired sash windows on both floors.

The entrance vestibule has moulded plaster cornices, leading to a staircase with turned balusters, moulded ramped handrails, and elaborate panelled newel posts. Ground floor doorways have moulded surrounds, panelled doors, and wide multi-pane overlights. The upper floor includes the former council chamber, accessed via elaborate panelled doors with etched glass glazing. The ceiling has a vaulted centre section and exposed roof trusses with moulded queen posts. Other rooms retain original hearth surrounds with overmantles and other original joinery.

The building is a prominent, carefully-designed public building, situated on a principal street frontage within the centre of the rapidly developing planned settlement of Lytham St. Anne's. It reflects the confidence of the local authority in contemporary architectural form and is a largely unaltered example of a significant late 19th/early 20th century municipal building.