Former Gas Workers Cottages And Managers House

Terrace of houses formerly used as gas workers' cottages and a manager's house, built in 1879 by the architects Shenton and Baker for Leicester Corporation Gas Undertaking. The buildings formed part of the Aylestone Road Gas Works.

The terrace is constructed of red brick with blue brick dressings. The gables are clad in white brick with applied timber framing. The manager's house features a white brick upper storey with applied timber frame and tile hung cheeks to windows. All buildings have tile roofs and are two and a half storeys high.

The composition is roughly symmetrical, arranged around a central single-window gabled bay, flanked by two-window gabled bays. The elevation is articulated by alternating paired bays of two storeys with dormers and broad two-window gabled bays. To the north, the terrace is framed by a gabled single-window bay. To the south, the terrace terminates in a half-hipped roof descending to the lower manager's house at the corner.

Tall brick stacks with moulded brick caps are positioned behind gables and between dormers, with a terminal stack to the south. Each cottage has a door and a single window at ground floor level. Windows at numbers 203 to 245 are of two lights, while number 201 has three lights. Each window is set beneath a segmental brick arch. Most retain small-paned timber casements, though a few preserve original windows with small-paned fixed upper lights and larger sash lights below. The doorways are tall, each set under a segmental brick arch, and most retain small-paned overlights and four-panel flush doors. Each house has a shared passageway to the rear.

A continuous blue brick storey band with a flush band below and above the windows runs across the terrace. The gables rest on moulded brackets above a dentil cornice, with the larger gables featuring double bargeboards. Number 223 has a single flush horizontal sliding sash. Number 201 has a two-light small-paned gable window on moulded feet. The remaining gables have similar pairs of casement windows, originally pivoted but mostly now side or top hung or fixed lights. Between each house is a single half-hipped full dormer, most retaining horizontal sliding sashes. The north return of number 201 has a gabled dormer with a surviving pivoted window.

Number 247, the former manager's house, presents two bays to Aylestone Road. The forward gabled bay to the left has a red brick ground floor and white brick upper floor with applied timber decoration, with a gablet set forward and separate bargeboards. A canted bay window with timber casements is set beneath a deep pitched tiled canopy on timber brackets. A three-light timber mullion and transome casement occupies the first floor. The right bay, in red brick, has a three-light timber mullion and transome ground floor window under a segmental arch, with a doorway under a segmental arch to the right. The first floor features a similar two-light window. A stack is set back to the right.

On the south return, the ground floor is in red brick and the upper floor in white brick, with a red brick stack bay beyond. A tall rear stack is positioned at the back. The ground floor has a pair of windows, one with a flat arch (possibly altered) and what may have been a former doorway under a segmental arch. A steep-pitched tiled canopy with deep bargeboards is set over the first floor window. Above this is a two-light full dormer with a pivoted window, under a half-hipped tile roof with tile hung cheeks.

Each house is fronted by a brick parapet wall with stone coping.

The Gas Company and later Leicester Corporation placed considerable emphasis on the health and welfare of the workforce. Leisure facilities including a mess room, baths and toilets were provided, and entertainment during winter months included lectures, readings and concerts. An ambulance class was established in 1886. The company also provided five allotments in Aylestone Road. Commitment to the buildings and the site has continued, exemplified by the gas museum set up in 1977.