Building 22, former Joiner's Shop, including chimney and rebuilt boiler house (building 16)

Workshop with integral engine house, 1850s for Earl Fitzwilliam. Renovated 1990 as part of Elsecar Heritage Centre.

MATERIALS: well-dressed, coursed sandstone generally with deep horizontal tooling, inner-wall facing in brick. Welsh slate roofs.

PLAN: the northern bay was divided-off internally to form the engine house, now forming a stairwell, the boiler house and chimney being attached to the north. The upper floor is accessed via an external stair to the southern end. The ground floor also accessed at the southern end, but there are also wide-arched opposed entrances in the side walls.

EXTERIOR: the building is of two storeys, being hipped, three bays wide, eight bays long, the northern bay (engine house) being wider, abutting the south-western corner of the Fitting Shop. There are string courses at first-floor and eaves height. Windows are regularly spaced and have slab lintels and projecting sills, most having diamond lattice iron window frames. The arched entrances to the ground floor are basket-arched with voussoirs, the keystone being iron plated, the arches occupy the central three bays of the workshop section of the building. The eastern elevation has a round arched window to the first-floor of the engine house bay, reduced from a doorway. Below is an inserted doorway. Near central to the eastern elevation is an inserted first-floor taking-in door complete with a winch. The southern end elevation has a cantilevered stone staircase leading up to the central first-floor doorway which has a round-arched fanlight. The openings to the ground floor on the eastern side are blocked internally.

INTERIOR: the ground floor retains cast and wrought iron fittings attached to the ceiling beams. Exposed on the upper floor, within the partition wall that divides off the northernmost bay (the former engine house) is a low-set, arched opening that is now blocked (most likely formerly used for a belt or rope drive connected to the engine). Set higher in the same wall to the west is a lever mechanism which may have allowed part of the power-train to be disconnected from the engine. A number of timber hooks are fixed to the exposed queen post roof structure.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: the boiler chimney abuts the northern wall of the building, also abutting the nave wall of the adjacent Fitting Shop. This is stone-built and has a tall square base rising to a cornice that is just below the eaves line of the Joiners’ Shop. It then rises as a gently tapering octagonal shaft to a bold, corniced cap. Wrapping around the base of the chimney, in-filling the space between the Joiners’ Shop and the aisle to the Fitting Shop is a single-storey, gabled building that is a toilet block built around 1990 approximating the form of the original boiler house.