Storey Institute, Back Entrance

The Storey Institute back entrance is a former frontispiece to Cawthorne House, which was built in the 1770s by Richard Gillow for John Fenton Cawthorne and originally stood on the site of the present Post Office in Market Street. It was re-sited and reduced in height around 1906. The structure is made of sandstone ashlar and features a Roman Doric portico with two columns in antis, topped by a triglyph frieze and cornice. Above the portico are three courses of masonry with chamfered quoins and a small moulded cornice, followed by a single course that supports a pediment with dentils. Originally, there were two storeys between the portico and the pediment. The openings of the portico are adorned with elegant wrought-iron gates and screens, also from Cawthorne House, which feature elaborate scrolled cresting. The structure frames a rectangular opening in a single-storey building. Additionally, to the left, there is an ex-situ semicircular door hood from around 1700, which was formerly part of a building demolished in 1906 to allow for an extension of the Storey Institute on Meeting House Lane.