5, Winckley Square

This is a large town house, built between 1854 and 1855 for Thomas Miller. It is now part of an annex to a college of further education, linked to No. 11 Winckley Street. The house is constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with sandstone ashlar dressings and a slate roof. It has a double-pile plan and is double-fronted, with a short projecting wing at the right-hand corner, designed in an Italian palazzo style.

The house has three storeys over a basement and a symmetrical five-window main range. It features an ashlar plinth, sill bands to all floors, a string-course with Vitruvian scroll ornament over the ground floor, and a 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, a prominent cornice, a pierced parapet, a round-headed archway with impost cartouches bearing the monogram "TM" and a keystone cartouche, internal steps, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The main doorway is round-headed, with side lights and a fanlight, all with engraved or coloured glass. The windows are sash windows without glazing bars, and the basement has large rectangular openings with ornamental cast-iron grills. The areas on either side of the porch have plinths indicating former railings. The roof is hipped, with ridge chimneys.

The wing on the right is slightly lower, with a plinth and dentilled cornice, and a tripartite sash window on the ground floor, but is otherwise similar in appearance. The east side wall has two tripartite stair-windows, the upper one being Venetian. The rear elevation has various sash windows and some later additions.

Inside, the entrance lobby has steps and a coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling, with shell tympani over the inner and outer doors. There is a lateral hallway with a coloured tile floor, a large open-well stone staircase with decorated cast-iron balusters, and stair-windows with coloured glass. The lower stair window contains a shield dated 1855, and the upper window has similar glazing, including the monogram "TM”. Thomas Miller was the proprietor of Horrocks Miller & Co, the largest cotton firm in Preston.