Estate Buildings

This substantial complex of offices, shops and warehouses incorporates the Ramsden Estate Offices and was built between 1869 and 1874 to designs by W H Crossland in a free Gothic style. The buildings have undergone minor later alterations.

Construction and Layout

The buildings are constructed of local sandstone, with ashlar stonework facing the principal street elevations and rough coursed blocks facing the internal courtyard. The plan comprises linear ranges arranged around three sides of a rectangular courtyard that narrows to the south, with an arched opening and access point in the east side.

Railway Street Elevation

This elevation rises to four storeys with multiple bays beneath hipped slate roofs, some conical. The roofline is varied with steep spires and ridges behind a corbelled-out traceried parapet. Large sash windows glazed with plate glass are tightly packed across the elevation, with each storey alternating between square and arched heads. Moulded strings run horizontally across the facade, with the first-floor string carved with foliage. Several areas feature elaborate wrought iron railings.

Numbers one to seven form an approximately symmetrical block with two canted bays and, from south to north, four ranges of sashes, eight ranges of sashes, and three ranges of sashes. A corbelled-out balcony projects at second-floor level. Several entrances pierce the elevation through two-centred arched doorways closed with fine wrought-ironwork.

The entrance to the Ramsden Estate Offices is distinguished by a pair of arched openings divided by a colonette under one of the projecting bays, with a balcony above and more lavish decoration, particularly in the carved impost band and hoodmoulds. The south end entrance is set within a gabled, buttressed portal, while paired entrances at the north end have fanlights pierced by quatrefoils.

Windows are set in deep moulded reveals, segment-headed at first-floor level and round-arched at third-floor level. First-floor windows in the bay windows have cusped heads, while third-floor bay windows have pointed heads. Above ground-floor level, all windows feature polished marble colonnettes with foliage capitals.

Numbers nine and eleven break forward slightly and have third-floor pinnacled and gabled tourelles corbelled out at the corners, with a central buttress rising from ground to second floor. Windows match those elsewhere but are grouped irregularly with paired windows in the south part and triple windows in the north part. Each entrance has a finely executed ironwork grille closing off the entrance lobby from the street. The offices are also decorated externally with a series of armorial shields displaying the various marriage alliances of the Ramsden family.

Westgate Elevation

This elevation rises to four storeys across five bays beneath hipped slate roofs, some conical. The east bay breaks forward slightly and has pinnacled and gabled tourelles on elaborately carved corbels at third-floor level, with a plain corbelled-out parapet. The next three bays are gabled with cross-shaped arrow slits, separated by thin buttresses. The west bay has a similar tourelle, a traceried parapet and a full-height elaborate polygonal corner turret.

Arched shopfronts occupy the ground floor with moulded segmental arches and carved spandrels. The shopfronts are mostly modern except for one inter-war brass shopfront. First-floor windows are segment-headed, second-floor windows are flat-headed, and third-floor windows are round-arched. All are sashes, separated by polished marble colonnettes with foliate capitals, and with hoodmoulds to the first and third floors. The window arrangement comprises two ranges to the east bay, three to the next three bays, and two to the west bay.

The prominent corner of Westgate Street and Railway Street incorporates a full-height turret and spire with cusped heads to the first-floor windows, an ornate carved stringcourse below, and beneath this a row of traceried panels. Alternating with the first-floor windows are polished stone columns with foliage capitals supporting lions rampant. The ground floor is elaborately treated with tall cusped windows and door, alternating with clustered colonnettes in contrasting polished stone, with carved foliate capitals and spandrels.

The left return to Railway Street is similar to the west bay facing Westgate, but with three window ranges to the upper floors, an arched entrance in a portal with flanking buttresses, a pair of small cusped windows above, some panelling and two ornately carved panels above. The right return to Station Street is similarly detailed to the rest of the elevation, but with five windows (arranged as three and two) and decorative roundels to each of the upper floors. The third-floor roundel takes the form of a decorative datestone inscribed 1869.

Station Street Elevation

This elevation rises to three storeys with basements and attics. A stringcourse runs at eaves level below a crenelated parapet, and the corners have corbelled crocketed pinnacles. The front elevation has nine bays with two-light plate sash windows in double chamfered surrounds. Seven segment-headed windows at ground-floor level are closely spaced to form a continuous arcade containing three doors: one door is segment-headed and two are two-centred, all with overlights. The basement is lit by square-headed shouldered windows and secured with cast-iron railings with fleur-de-lys finials and modern pavement grates. To the south, connected to the adjacent building, is a pointed arch with hoodmould and a crow-stepped parapet over a gateway with replacement gates.

Courtyard Elevations

All the ranges facing the courtyard are plain with regular fenestration of two-pane plate-glass sash windows. The only variation is provided by changes in floor levels between the principal Railway Street/Westgate range and the Station Street range, and by the treatment of the stair windows. The stair windows have stone mullions, most with bar or plate tracery above the lights, and are arranged to suit internal lighting requirements rather than external symmetry.

Interior: Railway Street Range

The Ramsden Estate Offices comprise a suite of offices on the first floor with a ground-floor entrance hall and audit room featuring a Gothic decorative scheme. The main entrance opens into a tiled lobby with a flight of steps leading to the front doors with ironwork decoration. The large entrance hall is highly decorated, with a compartmented ceiling, tiled flooring, brattished wall panelling to dado height and an elaborately carved Gothic Revival fireplace.

An elaborate screen divides the hall from the staircase, consisting of three pointed arches supported by clustered colonettes painted to resemble marble, with quatrefoils in roundels pierced into the spandrels. The first floor is accessed via a semi-circular stone staircase with an ornately scrolled wrought-iron balustrade, lit by lancet windows. These windows contain grisaille glass, mainly in a pattern of alternating roses and fleur-de-lis, with stained-glass margins. A curved stair descends to the basement.

The first-floor central lobby is divided from the staircase by a glazed partition and has a coffered ceiling and original fireplace. A waiting room gives direct access to all the offices around it, which are from north to south: Surveyor's Room, Agent's Room, General Office and Cashier's Office. The offices and waiting room all have decorative ribbed ceilings and double skirting boards, with panelled wainscoting in the agent's room and cashier's office.

The cashier's office is separated from the general office by a glazed timber traceried screen, and both rooms have elaborate fireplaces. The cashier's fireplace includes an 1869 datestone. A large strong room is accessed through a heavy iron door and has brick-lined walls and fireproof brick vaulted floors and ceilings. It contains an iron mezzanine floor and extensive metal shelving, timber cupboards, extra safes and heavy iron shutters to its windows.

The rest of the range comprises four storeys of offices and a basement for storage and accommodation for porters. It has a simple and consistent decorative scheme that varies slightly from floor to floor according to the hierarchy of spaces. Original windows and doorways have a reeded moulding and tablets to the architraves. The doors are typically four-panelled, many replaced or covered. Most rooms have simple substantial skirting, with double skirting board used throughout the ground floor, and most rooms have either coved or reeded cornices. Some rooms, particularly on the ground and first floors, also retain tongue-and-groove wainscoting, and there are original stone fire-surrounds to many rooms, often painted over.

The rooms are served by a series of communal cantilevered stone staircases with simple cast-iron scrollwork balustrades. Although some of the basement has been updated to provide a modern caretaker flat, it retains much of its original layout and original features and joinery, including a fireplace in a porter's room.

Interior: Westgate Range

The ground-floor retail and commercial units have modern interiors, all with mezzanine levels. The upper floors have been converted to residential apartments.

Interior: Station Street Range

This range has been subdivided to form modern offices but retains original features, including jack-vaulted ceilings supported on cast-iron columns within the south range. Some rooms retain fireplaces, glazed partitions and high tongue-and-groove wainscoting. Within the east-west range there is an inserted modern staircase to the ground floor, but the original (though modified) staircase between the first and second floor is retained. Within the north-south range one room retains a half-glazed partition and column. The first and second floors are accessed from a separate staircase which leads directly up from the street. This stone staircase retains many of its original features and is constructed and decorated similarly to those in the rest of the Estate Buildings.