Waring And Gillow'S Showrooms

Waring and Gillow's Showrooms are furniture showrooms and offices built in 1882, with alterations made in the 20th century. They were likely designed by the architectural firm Paley and Austin for Gillow's, whose name is inscribed on the lintel of an internal doorway. The building is constructed of coursed dressed sandstone with ashlar dressings and features slate roofs with tall, twin-flue chimney stacks on either side of the entrance bays.

The facade, which is in a free Elizabethan style, has 18 bays and stands three storeys tall, plus cellars and attics. It is characterized by four shallow two-bay projections that are evenly spaced and topped with coped and finialed gables, each featuring 3-light or 2-light attic windows. The main doorway is located in the second projection, flanked by narrow windows that project forward like consoles to support a two-storey canted bay with paired windows on each floor. The first-floor windows are cross-windows, flanked by a narrow window, and have sliding sashes below the transom, while the second-floor windows are simply 2-light windows with sliding sashes. On the ground floor, the windows in bays 1-6 and 9-10 have been widened to create shop windows, while the remaining windows resemble those on the first floor.

Inside, there are tall, well-lit showrooms on either side of the staircase, featuring moulded ceiling beams supported by a single row of cast-iron columns with fluted shafts and studded bands. The staircase is designed in an Imperial style, with heavy newel posts and balusters shaped like inverted obelisks, rising against a large 21-light mullioned and transomed window. These showrooms were once connected to a large five-storey factory on St Leonardgate and are an important part of the central premises of the Gillow company, which was a major provincial furniture maker in the 18th and 19th centuries and operated until its closure in 1962.