Castle Press

Castle Press

Castle Press is a Grade II listed building, originally constructed in 1891 as artillery barracks and headquarters for the 1st Lincolnshire Volunteer Position Artillery. It was later converted to a printing works.

The building is constructed of red brick with limestone ashlar details and is topped by a Welsh slate roof. It is rectangular on plan, oriented on an east-west axis with its principal elevation facing east onto Victoria Street.

The eastern façade consists of two storeys and seven bays, with a three-storey central bay breaking forward. The former central entrance, now sealed closed, has a four-centred arch with hoodmould and a twentieth-century recessed window. The spandrels contain relief carvings of coats of arms.

The ground floor features one-over-one plate-glass sash windows in ovolo-moulded reveals with chamfered ashlar sills and lintels. Bays three and five consist of paired windows, compared to single sash windows on the outer bays. A stone frieze panel with raised bands to the top and bottom separates the ground and first floors.

The central bay on the first floor features a segmental-bowed ashlar oriel window with a moulded corbelled base, a three-light mullioned and transomed window, and a crenelated parapet. The flanking bays have shorter versions of the ground floor windows.

The side bays feature a string course, crenelated parapet and merlons with alternate arrow slits and shields with arms in relief. A square turret rises from the central bay, featuring three slit-lights linked by two flush stone bands. Above is a string course, crenelated parapet with a central shield plaque, and a round turret in the right corner with a carved foliate base, flush bands and blind arrow-slits. All parapets have moulded stone coping.

To the right of bays two and four are downpipes with ornate rainwater-heads. The roof is hipped with angle finials and features ridge stacks with ashlar bands, panelled upper sections and stone caps. The right return continues the string courses and parapet, and has an inserted ground-floor door with a large three-pane overlight and two first-floor windows, one an original eight-over-two sash. The left return has a tall round-headed stair window.

A range to the rear consisting of two halls was added in the twentieth century. These feature ten large cross-windows and a large wooden entrance door. The eastern hall is also lit by five hipped skylights.

Interior

The former entrance hall leads to a corridor running the length of the building. The original stone staircase to the south features a wooden handrail and intricate black metal balustrades. The twentieth-century stairs at the northern end feature red and white floor tiles and a mid-twentieth-century wooden banister.

Upstairs, in the south-eastern corner is a bathroom with a black and red tiled floor, white marble sink, and a stained glass cubicle containing a late nineteenth-century blue and white porcelain Doulton toilet and wooden seat in cast iron brackets. Along the first floor on the eastern front are a series of rooms formally used as offices. These retain original doors and architraves, moulded skirting, with some featuring moulded arched niche surrounds and cornices visible above the suspended ceiling. The principal office features twentieth-century timber wall panelling to picture rail height, possibly of walnut, continued to the walls of the north corridor and twentieth-century stairwell.

The nineteenth-century barracks hall on the ground floor features a concrete and red tiled floor with white-painted red brick walls. Along the northern wall are five large arched windows; opposite on the southern side are five smaller rectangular 2/8 static windows. Both sets were previously exterior but have since been enclosed by later extensions. The ceiling consists of a suspended metal and wooden ceiling, with a trussed section in the south-western corner. The western end has two metal-shuttered doors. Above the entrance to the hall on the eastern end is a balcony upheld by decorative black metal brackets. The gallery above features an ornate metal balustrade, mostly enclosed by twentieth-century shuttering.

Extensions

To the north and west of the building are three single-storey twentieth-century halls. The first, directly north of the original hall, dates between 1908 and 1933 and contains a concrete floor and English bond brick walls. The two halls to the rear, constructed between 1963 and 1974, feature red tiled flooring and a mixture of brick and ashlar stone walls.