Standidge Buildings

Standidge Buildings

Warehouses and offices built in 1884 for Matthew Whitfield, wholesale grocer. The interior was restored in 1889 following a fire, and the buildings were converted to a mineral water works around 1900.

The buildings are constructed of red brick with terracotta detailing, stone bands, voussoirs and keystones, and Welsh slate roofs.

The buildings are grouped around a sub-rectangular courtyard on the south side of Chapel Lane. A carriageway entrance passes through the office and warehouse range on the north side. Rectangular warehouses occupy the west and east sides of the courtyard, with an L-shaped warehouse or bottling house to the south.

Office and Warehouse

The main north elevation is four bays wide and three storeys high. The bays are recessed and set between projecting pilasters with brick and stone string courses that form window sills at first and second-floor levels. A brick plinth at ground level is pierced by grilles. The pilasters have moulded brick capitals at first-floor level, with decorative terracotta ventilation bricks piercing the architrave. The capitals sit beneath a moulded brick and stone cornice band spanning the full width of the building. The pilasters continue to the full height of the building, terminating in elaborately moulded terracotta capitals with floral panel architraves. A pair of fluted corbels support a decorative terracotta cornice and frieze.

The ground floor has deeply recessed three-light office windows on either side of a central splayed carriageway entrance. The windows have timber frames, painted stone sills, segmental arched brick lintels, moulded stone keystones and springing, and a projecting drip mould terminating on fluted capitals. The first-floor windows are similar but larger, with fluted keystones and the drip moulds of the central pair resting on a frieze band with foliate panels. A slightly off-centre timber-framed pulley block projects from the central panel. The second floor has four smaller windows without drip moulds.

A date stone above the entrance comprises a shield on a background of acanthus leaves and reads "MW 1884". A cast-iron beam above the carriage entrance is embellished with a panel decorated with small scroll motifs and reads "STANDIDGE BUILDINGS". The ceiling above the entrance is clad in timber boards and the flanking side walls each have a doorway and windows lighting the offices to either side.

Within the courtyard, the three-storey, three-bay rear south elevation is built of plain brick with a dentil cornice. The first and second floors have multi-pane casement windows within segmental brick arches flanking central timber taking-in doors. The doors have chamfered and stopped timber beam lintels and stone sills, with a timber pulley beam and a pivoting iron davit for moving goods at second-floor level. The ground floor has a pair of four-light casement windows with iron grilles below on either side of the carriageway entrance, which has stepped brick splays. The gable walls are blind and brick chimney stacks rise within the gabled slate roof. It is drained by cast-iron roof gutters discharging into a mixture of cast-iron and plastic downpipes. A low two-storey stair and toilet turret with half-hipped slate roof is built against the left-hand side of the rear elevation, and a similar but larger three-storey turret is built against the right-hand end. Both turrets have a double door in the south elevation and a number of small windows.

The ground floor is occupied on either side of the carriageway entrance by suites of offices. Those to the east are small rooms retaining their original plan form, whereas the west suite has been opened up into a single open-plan office space. A winder stair with Yorkstone treads and risers, a plain wrought-iron balustrade and a barley-twist newel post rises to the first floor from the passageway serving the east offices.

The first-floor storeroom is a large open space spanning the full length and width of the building. It has a large doorway cut in the west wall permitting access from the adjacent property (not of special interest). Two cast-iron columns with integral column-heads and union plates are situated on a central alignment in the room. The columns have large timber cushion pads supporting a chamfered and stopped longitudinal beam exposed in the ceiling, carrying the timber floor joists of the floor above.

The second-floor storeroom is also a large open space spanning the full width of the building and is open to the roof. The roof is timber lined and supported by queen-post trusses with tie-beams supported by metal gussets embedded in the walls. A timber mezzanine gallery is set within the frames of the queen-post roof and is accessed by a plain open timber dog-leg stair. The brick walls are whitewashed and each gable wall has an exposed chimney flue.

East and West Warehouses

The three-storey, six-bay east warehouse is built of red brick. The hipped slate roof projects over the east and west elevations, supported on stepped brick eaves courses. The roof has dark grey ridge tiles and is drained by cast-iron gutters and downpipes. The west elevation faces into the courtyard and is partially obscured by and built up against the south warehouse. It has nine multi-pane timber casement windows flanking two sets of taking-in doors, two of which have been blocked, and a pedestrian doorway. On the ground floor the left-hand taking-in doors each have three-light glazed upper panels, and the ground-floor windows are barred.

The six-bay rear east elevation is pierced by five multi-pane timber casement windows beneath segmental arches at first-floor level and six at second-floor level. All ground-floor openings apart from one door have been blocked, giving the appearance of a blind arcade. The door gives access to a passageway screened by a brick wall. The north and south gable walls are blind and the south gable is screened by an adjacent property.

The three-storey, five-bay west warehouse has two blind bays at the southern end, giving the appearance of a three-bay structure. The east elevation faces into the courtyard and is partially obscured and built up against by the south warehouse. The first and second floors have multi-pane casement windows on either side of sliding timber taking-in doors. The doors have chamfered and stopped timber beam lintels and stone sills, with a steel pulley beam and a pivoting iron davit for moving goods. The ground floor has a recessed blocked doorway at the left-hand end partially obscured by the south warehouse or bottling house. At the right-hand end is a tall and narrow recessed arched pedestrian doorway with a tall fanlight. The central taking-in door and the adjacent window position to the left have been blocked and the former window position to the right is occupied by a double timber door beneath a boarded-over panel. The wall is strengthened by eight circular tie-bar plates. The northern corner is attached to an L-shaped section of a former brick boundary wall with stone coping, which is attached to the west stair and toilet turret.

The rear west elevation is blind and is built up against the listed Grade II St Mary's Court, a former soup kitchen and parish room of the Church of St Mary. The south gable wall has a blocked window partially built up against by the listed Grade II rectory of the Church of St Mary. The north gable is obscured by the former Salvation Army Men's Home. The gabled slate roof has dark grey ridge tiles and is drained by cast-iron gutters supported by a dentil eaves course and by plastic downpipes.

The interiors of both warehouses are very similar in construction, with a concrete ground floor and a central row of cast-iron columns cast by Wright and Son, Hull, which have integral column-heads and flanged union plates. The columns support large timber cushion pads carrying chamfered and stopped longitudinal beams supporting the timber floors above. A timber winder stair with a solid plank balustrade and cast-iron tread plates is situated towards the northern end of each building and rises one floor at a time. The first and second floors of the east warehouse are largely undivided and the second floor is open to the king-post roof. All floors within the west warehouse have been subdivided by secondary partition walls and the second floor has an exposed queen-post roof. Secondary door openings have been knocked through the north gable wall into the adjacent property (not of special interest).

South Warehouse or Bottling House

The ground floor of the two-storey north elevation faces into the courtyard. It has a slightly off-centre secondary rolling door and blocked window and taking-in door positions. A secondary double door is situated at the left-hand end, while the right-hand end is occupied by a recessed two-panel glazed timber door with fanlight and a recessed multi-pane timber casement window. The first floor has three multi-pane casement windows with stone sills, a pair of semi-glazed taking-in doors with a chamfered beam and steel hoist rails above, and an adjacent blocked taking-in door position. A dentil eaves course supports a cast-iron gutter draining the L-shaped gabled and half-hipped slate roof, with a truncated and capped brick chimney stack at the eastern end. The south gable is predominantly built up against and obscured by adjacent buildings. A low two-storey attached range with a gabled slate roof is situated against its south-west corner, and the south elevation is blind. The remaining rear re-entrant angle elevations were not accessible.

The ground-floor interior is accessed directly from the courtyard by a sliding door. It is a large L-shaped open space with cambered concrete floors with four secondary rolled steel joist posts supporting transverse rolled steel joist beams carrying the timber joists of the floor above. The walls are whitewashed and the east wall has modern breeze block patching. The south wall has a line-shaft bearing box set high at its centre and a doorway in the south-west corner allowing access into an attached small rectangular range. The interior of the attached range has whitewashed masonry wall surfaces, with single rooms to the ground and first floors. The first floor is accessed by a plain timber stair with no risers set against the west wall, and has an exposed principal rafter roof.

The first floor of the main range is accessed from the courtyard by an external doorway at the west end of the north elevation. An enclosed plain timber stair with no risers or balustrade opens to the L-shaped first floor. The walls all have whitewashed surfaces. A room has been formed by an internal brick and plank partition wall at the eastern end of the east-west range. The partition wall supports the ends of two trusses of the roof of the north-south range. The roof is exposed over both ranges. The east-west range had a gabled principal rafter roof carried on a single principal rafter truss; however, the truss has been cut and truncated, leaving what amounts to a common rafter roof. The north-south range has a hipped principal rafter roof with wrought-iron king posts and braces.

Courtyard

The sub-rectangular courtyard is accessed from Chapel Lane by the carriageway entrance beneath the north office and warehouse range. It has a poured blue-grey concrete surface moulded to give the appearance of stone setts and falls to a number of decorative cast-iron drain gullies. The surface immediately in front of the carriageway entrance has broken up and exposes the plain concrete floor beneath.