Prudential Assurance Building

The Prudential Assurance Building, located on a corner site in Pinstone Street, Sheffield, is an office and retail building constructed in 1896. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse for the Prudential Assurance Company, it is built of red brick with a granite plinth and terracotta dressings, topped by a steep-pitched plain tile roof with single ridge and two gable stacks, all panelled and coped. The building is in a Renaissance Revival style.

The exterior features a granite plinth, cornices to the first and third floors (the third being dentilled), and half-octagonal buttresses with pinnacles to the fourth floor's bays. The building has four storeys plus attics, with a seven-window front. The windows are principally cross-mullioned casements. At the apex of the corner, there are two-light windows to the second floor within segment-headed recesses. To the left and right, there are single three-light windows. The fourth floor replicates this fenestration, with a panel above the central windows inscribed "Prudential Assurance," and machicolated parapets above the flanking pairs. Above the centre is a large segmental pedimented gable flanked by spired buttresses and topped with an urn, with two plain sashes with transoms and fanlights. Flanking this gable are two box dormers with single and double glazing bar lights. A smaller gable with concave ramped coping and a finial also features two plain sashes with transoms and fanlights. The ground floor incorporates a central three-light window with panelled and enriched pilasters, a large basket-arched doorway, a three-light window, a moulded elliptical arched doorway with a fanlight, and a basket-arched shopfront with a transom and overlight. The interior has not been inspected. This building is one of several designed by Waterhouse for the Prudential Assurance Company.