Public Offices

621-1/0/10013 CLIFTON DRIVE 28-NOV-03 292-294 Public Offices

II Public Offices. 1902, extended 1907, and with late C20 alterations and additions. By Thomas Muirhead, architect, of Manchester for Lytham St Annes Urban District Council. Accrington red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and detailing, gable and eaves chimney stacks with moulded caps, coped gables and a slate roof covering. PLAN: Elongated L-plan complex with symmetrical street frontage range and long, plainly-detailed service range added to rear. EXTERIOR: Clifton Drive South elevation of 5 bays, 2 storeys above a basement, set behind brick walls with concave depressions supporting railings. Symmetrical frontage with central 3 bays advanced, with wide semi-circular banded arch to central doorway, set beneath flat canopy set on elongated brackets. Flanking the doorway are paired 6 over 9 pane sash windows set on an ashlar cill band and below a moulded string course. The advanced 3 bays are delineated by angled corner shafts carried on moulded corbels, and terminating at moulded finials to short curved copings. Above the doorway is a wide storey band with ashlar panels incorporating raised lettering which reads 'PUBLIC OFFICES 1900 ' Above, 3 sunken bay windows with semi-circular centre lights, separated by banded pilasters. Angled returns to set-back end bays, with paired sash windows to both floors. INTERIOR: Entrance vestibule with moulded plaster cornices leads onto stair with turned balusters, moulded ramped handrails and elaborate panelled newel posts. Ground floor doorways with moulded surrounds, panelled doors and wide multi-pane overlights. Upper floor with former council chamber accessed by means of elaborate panelled doors with etched glass glazing. Ceiling with vaulted centre section, and with exposed roof trusses with moulded queen posts. Other rooms retain original hearth surrounds with overmantles and other items of original joinery.

A prominent and carefully-designed public building, carefully sited on a principal street frontage within the centre of the rapidly-developing planned settlement of Lytham St. Anne's. The building is an expression in contemporary architectural form of the confidence of a local authority, and is a little -altered example of a significant late C19/early C20 municipal building type.