Office At Ainscoughs Mill And Attached Boundary Wall

This is an office building, built around 1860, likely as the residence of Richard Ainscough, a partner in the milling company. It is constructed of red brick with ashlar and stucco dressings, and has hipped slate roofs with various ridge stacks. The design is in an Italianate style, characterised by quoins, a first-floor band, and dentilled eaves. The building has a basement, two storeys, and an L-shaped layout.

The projecting central bay features quoins, a dentilled pediment, and a round-arched ashlar doorcase containing a 19th-century half-glazed door with a fanlight. Flanking this bay are square ashlar bay windows with four-light cross-mullioned windows. Above, there are 20th-century wooden cross-casements in original openings, each with a keystone lintel. The right return has a late 20th-century single-storey addition to the basement. The ground floor features three three-light cross-mullioned windows, and above, two 19th-century plain sashes, followed by two blocked and altered openings, also with keystone lintels. The left return has small stone-mullioned windows to the basement, with the central one altered in the 20th century. On the ground floor, a blocked stone-mullioned window is flanked to the left by three plain sashes, and to the right by a 20th-century window and a further plain sash. Above, three small sashes are positioned to the left and three 8/8 glazing bar sashes to the right, all with keystone lintels.

Inside, the central entrance hall and stairwell feature an elliptical arch to the ground floor and a cornice with a panelled span beam on foliage brackets to the landing. The open-well cantilever stair has elaborate cast iron balusters, panelled square newels, and a moulded handrail. A stair window, now blocked, once featured coloured and patterned margin glazing. An original moulded panelled inner door and screen, half-glazed with sidelights and overlight, remains. Principal rooms have elaborate pierced and moulded cornices. First floor rooms also have similar cornices, and several original four-panel doors are present.

Attached to the southwest corner of the frontage is a brick boundary wall with ramped ashlar coping and two panelled square gatepiers with pyramidal caps. This wall extends southwest for approximately 70 metres.