66 Bridgewater Street

Warehouse and former office, around 1857, designed by William Culshaw for Stuart & Douglas, ship owners, coopers and merchants.

The building is constructed of brown brick with red-brick and red-sandstone dressings, and slate roof coverings. It occupies a rectangular plan to the north-east of Queen's Dock, with a relatively narrow frontage on Bridgewater Street but considerable depth extending a full block to the rear, bounded by Kitchen Street to the rear, altered and rebuilt buildings to the north-east, and part of the former yard of the Stuart & Douglas cooperage to the south-west.

Externally, all windows feature red-brick segmental-arched heads and red-sandstone sills, with most fitted with timber frames, though some cast-iron frames exist. The roof is shallow-pitched with slate coverings, red-sandstone copings to each gable end, and a series of small rooflights just below the ridgeline on the north-east side and paired skylights at each end on the south-west side. A brick chimneystack stands towards the south corner. Each end of the building has a central loading bay and a raised slate-clad jigger loft at roof level, originally housing hoist machinery; the slate has been removed from the side walls and replaced by modern boarding, but survives to the roofs and rear walls.

The front elevation facing Bridgewater Street comprises three bays. The whitewashed ground floor contains a central loading bay set within a full-height recess with cut and rubbed jambs and a red-brick arched head. Sheet-iron loading doors exist to the ground, second and third floors, with paired multipaned cast-iron windows to the first floor. The ground-floor loading door is deeply recessed with cast-iron floor ends to the second and third floors. At the top of the loading bay is a projecting slightly-domed cast-iron head and hoist, with protective timber fenders at the base designed to prevent goods damaging the building when lifted. To the ground-floor right is a doorway with a lugged and shouldered painted-sandstone surround incorporating a triple keystone to its head, with a sheet-iron entrance door set back behind a modern security grille. The left bay is similarly detailed except that the first-floor window is blind and the ground floor has a window matching those to the uppermost floors. The ground-floor window retains a single external bar and sheet-iron shutter, absent from other windows. Across the whole frontage between ground and first floor is a painted signage band with early 20th-century lettering reading 'QUEEN'S STORES COMPANY / TURBINE BAGS SHIPS CHANDLERS SAILMAKERS'.

The rear elevation facing Kitchen Street is similarly detailed to the front but without an entrance doorway and painted signage, with windows to each floor flanking the central loading bay. Sheet-iron loading doors exist to each floor, and original cast-iron bars survive to two of the windows.

The south-west elevation faces the former cooperage yard and comprises nine bays. Large openings to the ground floor feature sandstone blocking detail to the jambs, probably originally all doorways; only one remains open with damaged timber and sheet-iron doors, while the others are completely or partly bricked up. The first floor has similarly sized windows; those to the right appear to contain original eight-over-eight sashes and probably lit the firm's offices. Windows to the two upper floors are smaller, with one towards the north-west end of the top floor partly bricked up.

The interior was not inspected, but photographs provided by the owner reveal heavy softwood-timber floor joists and cast-iron columns, with at least one internal brick compartment. King-post trusses are visible on the top floor along with boarded jigger lofts. A warehouse survey in 1977 recorded that inside the main entrance was an enclosed stair bay containing a stair flight leading to the first floor, a winder stair flight to the centre of the building on the north-east side providing access to the second floor, a straight flight at the front providing access between the second and third floors, and an enclosed stair bay to the north corner containing a winder stair serving all floor levels. A basement is also understood to exist.