13 Cheapside

A wool-stapler’s warehouse of the first quarter of the C19, converted as offices.

MATERIALS: hand-made brick with some sandstone walling, concrete tile roof.

PLAN: a three-storey block facing onto Cheapside with a rear façade to Carter Street.

EXTERIOR: the entrance faces Cheapside. The building is of five bays, in red brick (painted to first-floor sill level) laid to English Garden Wall bond of four stretcher courses to each header course. All the openings have segmental-arched brick heads, and the windows all have stone sills; the outer openings are wider than those flanking the loading bay. The central full-height loading bay retains loading doors. To either side are stacked windows. At the ground floor, these are modern replacement sliding sashes, with sidelights to the outer ones. The windows above are all small-pane casements of approximately the same size; the outer ones have brick infill to the jambs of the opening. There is a vertical brick joint with number 11 to the left, but no clear one with number 15 to the right.

The rear façade is largely of brown brick in English Garden Wall bond of four stretcher courses to each header course, and blind at the second and first floor levels. The ground floor and basement have interspersed bands of squared sandstone rubble and the same brick as above, except at the extreme right where sandstone is found to the basement only (which has a rendered plinth across the facade). Small modern casements have been inserted in the basement (with brick arch heads) and first-floor openings (with timber lintels). There are vertical mortar joints with number 15 at the left (which is slightly taller and oversails at the eaves), and at the right, number 11, which is lower. The eaves have been raised adjacent to number 11. There is an external air-conditioning unit* at ground-floor level.

INTERIOR: this is largely modernised but retains the structural fabric, including hewn purlins and king-post roof trusses, two of which have retained hoist gear suspended between them.

• Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the external air-conditioning unit to the rear façade is not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require listed building consent and this is a matter for the local planning authority to determine.