Former Barradale Offices

Former architects’ office built 1878-1880 to the designs of Isaac Barradale.

MATERIALS: thin red Surrey bricks laid in English bond with rough-cast render and Ketton stone dressings with clay tile roof covering.

PLAN: it has a rectangular plan and is located in a terrace facing east onto Greyfriars.

EXTERIOR: the building is in the Domestic Revival style. It has three storeys and an attic, all given a different treatment with the upper windows being built out as bays to obtain a side light at the end of the desks. On the ground floor the central chamfered ashlar doorway has a rectangular overlight with a coat of arms in the middle. This bears the words SEMPER EADEM which is the city’s motto and means ‘always the same’. On either side of the front door, which is not original, are four-light ashlar mullion and transom windows with shallow fillets and glazing bars to the top lights. The first floor is dominated by a single continuous canted oriel window with mullions and transoms forming ten lights, the whole under a tiled pent roof. The oriel is supported on ornate carved wooden brackets decorated with oak leaves, acorns and a lion’s face. The second floor is lit by two canted oriel windows with three lights each and glazing bars, supported by brackets. The jettied attic has two rough-cast gables supported on curved wooden brackets with plain bargeboards and drop finials. Each gable is lit by a four-light casement window and has a moulded wooden lintel.

INTERIOR: this has been remodelled and retains almost no historic fixtures, fittings or joinery except for the dogleg staircase which rises through all the floors. This has stone steps and a moulded handrail which terminates in a large scroll and supports an iron balustrade consisting of stick balusters punctuated by decorative panels. On the lower flights the panels have uprights in a diamond pattern with a roundel at the top, and on the upper flights they have wavy uprights with scrolls and an urn above.