5, Winckley Square

PRESTON

SD5329SE WINCKLEY SQUARE 941-1/11/293 (North East side) 27/09/79 No.5

GV II

Large town house, now part of annex to college of further education (with No.11 Winckley Street, q.v.). 1854-5, for Thomas Miller; altered. Red brick in Flemish bond, with sandstone ashlar dressings and slate roof. Double-pile plan, double-fronted, plus a short projecting wing at the right-hand corner. Italian palazzo style. Three storeys over basement, a symmetrical 5-window main range, with ashlar plinth, sill-bands to all floors, string-course with Vitruvian scroll ornament over ground floor, and frieze with rosettes between moulded brackets to a prominent cornice. The central entrance has a large and elaborate stone porch including blocked semi-columns with composite capitals, prominent cornice and pierced parapet, a round-headed archway with impost cartouches monogrammed "TM" and a keystone cartouche, internal steps and barrel-vaulted ceiling, and a large round-headed inner doorway with side lights and fanlight (all glazing either engraved or coloured). The windows are sashed without glazing bars and have flat-arched heads; the basement has large rectangular openings with ornamental cast-iron grills, the areas each side of the porch surrounded by plinths of former railings. Hipped roof, ridge chimneys. The wing to the right is slightly lower, has a plinth and dentilled cornice, and a tripartite sashed window a ground floor, but is otherwise similar. East side wall has 2 tripartite stair-windows, the upper Venetian. Rear has various sashed windows, and some additions. INTERIOR: entrance lobby with steps, coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling, shell tympani over inner and outer doors; lateral hallway with coloured tile floor, large open-well stone staircase with decorated cast-iron balusters, and stair-windows with coloured glass, the lower including a shield dated "MDCCCLV", and upper with similar glazing including monogram "TM". History: Thomas Miller was proprietor of Horrocks Miller & Co, the largest cotton firm in Preston.

Listing NGR: SD5385929202