Warehouse at 6 Effingham Street

Warehouse at 6 Effingham Street

This warehouse dates from 1884 and stands on the south side of Effingham Street. It is a seven-storey building with a basement, constructed with a fireproof cast-iron frame encased internally in concrete. The exterior is finished in mellow red brick with red and blue-black brick dressings.

The building has a rectangular plan with a relatively narrow frontage but considerable depth extending far back. It is enclosed on both sides by other warehouses of similar original date and style, though these have been heavily altered and substantially reduced in height. Napier Street, which originally ran to the rear of the warehouse, has since been built over and replaced by modern warehousing.

The north elevation facing Effingham Street is organised in four bays. A raised ground floor contains two loading bays set within full-height recesses with blue-black cut and rubbed brick quoining detail and red-brick arched heads. Tiered sheet-iron loading doors bearing the names of the O & D Williams and Thomas Brothers iron foundries survive. Above the loading bays are semi-circular cast-iron heads displaying the initials 'D.H' and the date '1884' in relief. Original protective timber fenders, designed to prevent bales damaging the building when lifted, flank the base of each loading bay.

The leftmost bay contains a segmental-arched entrance to the ground floor with a studded sheet-iron door set within a cast-iron frame. Above this entrance are slender stair windows with cast-iron frames, sheet-iron shutters, red-brick segmental-arched heads, and blue-black cut and rubbed brick sills. Bay three contains wider, squarer windows in the same style lighting the internal storage areas. These windows diminish slightly in size at each successive floor level, smallest at the top. At the top of the elevation is an oculus with a red-brick surround, lighting the jigger loft where the hoist machinery was housed. A sandstone cornice, now partly surviving, stretches across the top of the elevation. The west elevation shows repaired brickwork at the front corner, apparently dating from when the adjacent warehouse was reduced in height. Both side elevations are topped by brick parapets with sandstone copings, a fireproofing measure to prevent fire spreading between neighbouring buildings.

Internally, an enclosed stone stair positioned to the front left accesses all floor levels. Sheet-iron doors set within cast-iron frames open from the stair onto large open-plan warehouse spaces. These spaces feature cast-iron framed floors, ceilings and supporting piers, all encased in concrete. Various floor levels retain surviving chains suspended from the ceiling. The first floor contains a small mid-20th-century foreman's office structure set between the loading bays. The jigger loft was not accessible at the time of survey, and it is unknown whether any hoist machinery survives there.