Hope Foundry Entrance Range And Hope House

This is an entrance range and Hope House, built between 1831 and 1850, originally serving a brass and iron foundry. The building is constructed of brick with stone dressings and a slate roof, designed in a Greek Revival style.

The exterior consists of three storeys and two unequal bays. The wider right bay features a prominent, battered archway spanning the ground and first floors, framed by a shouldered architrave with decorative key patterns and lion masks. A heavy modillion cornice tops the archway. Four sixteen-pane sashes are positioned above a deep ashlar band bearing the raised lettering "HOPE FOUNDRY," itself topped by a moulded cornice and blocking course. The left bay slightly projects; its ground floor is obscured by a 1900s three-window block, while the upper floors contain sash windows with margin lights, pilasters, an ashlar band, and a blocking course. A similar bay to the right of the foundry entrance was demolished before 1963.

Hope House, built in 1910, incorporates the left bay and extends around the corner onto Hope Road in a Classical style. It features an ashlar plinth, floor and sill bands, a deep cornice band, and a blocking course. A round-arched corner entrance is flanked by attached columns supporting an open segmental pediment featuring a scrolled date plaque. Sash windows are set within shouldered architraves. Triangular pediments are placed above three corner windows and the outer bays, with three- and seven-window bays in between.

The interior of the entrance range includes panelled double doors leading into a lobby and stair hall. This space boasts a grey and white veined marble floor and wall panels, a moulded plaster cornice, and wall plaques decorated with fruit and flower motifs. A stone staircase with a scrolled bronze balustrade ascends from the lobby.

The site of a previous flax mill, Hope Mill, owned by John Lawson and William Walker in 1812, was developed into an iron foundry around 1820. The entrance range is depicted on an Ordnance Survey map from 1850.