Queens Building

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 20/06/2019

718/0/10152

RUTLAND STREET Nos 37-43, Queens Building

(Formerly listed as Nos 37-43, RUTLAND STREET)

25-MAY-01

GV II Former boot warehouse, designed in 1897 by Harding and Topott of Leicester for Alfred Tyler and Sons, boot factors. Red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs with rear corner stack. Edwardian Baroque style. Corner site curving round into Queen Street.

Four storeys and attic. Sixteen-window range at first floor. The ground floor, mainly entrances or shop premises, has an arcade feature with stone banding and decoration, now mainly painted. Above this there are tall brick pilasters banded with stone and with composite capitals. These link the first and second floors and support an entablature with bracketed cornice. In between, the windows on each floor are mainly paired those to first floor with shouldered architraves and swagged keystones. Those above have Ionic columns with central blocks and a lintel band which curves inward over each window where there is a bracket to support it. Above this and the entablature is a balustrade with circular and square moulded balusters. Behind the balustrade a series of Diocletian windows echoing the arcade on the ground floor. Above this is a series of gables with oeil-de-boeuf windows.

The main entrance bay in Rutland Street has a canted bay to first floor and an octagonal lantern to the gable level with a tiled pyramidal roof. The gable ends are blank and the rear walls facing the internal angle have simple fenestration.

The INTERIOR has been altered but the entrance lobby to Rutland Street retains parts of a ornamental frieze and the lower part of the staircase has its original iron balustrade.

This building with its richly decorated facade forms an important part of a significant group of historic buildings in the area including the adjacent Church and the former Odeon Cinema opposite.

Sources: Leicestershire Record Office; Kelly’s Directory (1899).

Listing NGR: SK5916804496