11-13 Wellington Street

Former shoe factory built around 1866.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond with dressings of red, buff and vitrified brick, buff terracotta and stone. The roof is covered in slate. The structure forms part of a terrace on the south-west side of Wellington Street and has a U-shaped plan with a small rear range forming a courtyard. It comprises three storeys plus a basement.

The building is designed in the Ruskinian Italian Gothic style with a symmetrical façade of ten bays. The ground floor creates the impression of an arcade with recessed round arched openings and Italian pointed brick arches, divided by attached columns on square stone plinths and bases featuring a stone annulet and highly ornate foliate capitals. The first and tenth bays contain entrance doors accessed by a short flight of steps, each with four raised and fielded panels with shouldered arches, the upper two panels longer than the lower two. A segmental arched carriage entrance with double-leaf vertical plank doors occupies the central two bays. An ornate curlicue pattern is carved into the stone above the doors, and the Italian pointed brick arch has a keystone of carved foliage. The three door openings are flanked by attached square columns with matching stone plinths and capitals. To the left of the carriageway are two-light windows, and to the right are multi-pane windows. Heavy ornate cast-iron grilles protect the basement windows, now blocked.

A moulded brick string course marks the transition to the first floor, which is lit by one-over-one pane sash windows with gauged brick arches of red and vitrified brick. Window bays are divided by chamfered brick pilasters with stone bases embellished with a course of vitrified brick and stone capitals with shallow concave moulded sides. Above each capital is a short decorative band in buff terracotta with a chevron pattern below, flanked by moulded corbels. An elaborate buff terracotta string course in the form of an entablature runs above the brick arches, comprising an architrave bearing a Greek key pattern, a frieze divided into square panels with raised foliage, and a moulded cornice. The second floor is lit by two-light pointed arch windows with a roundel at the apex set under Italian pointed brick arches with billet moulding in buff brick. The imposts have a short decorative band in buff terracotta with a course of vitrified brick above and below. The buff terracotta cornice is embellished with egg and dart and is supported by a corbel-table with carved bands, foliate corbels and chevron pattern.

The internal courtyard is two window bays wide on the south-east side and four bays on the north-west and south-east sides. Fenestration mainly consists of two-over-two pane sash windows under cambered brick arches. On the north-west side the second-floor windows have been replaced with uPVC, the brick arches replaced with concrete lintels and the upper courses of brickwork rebuilt. Second floor windows on the south-west side have also been replaced with uPVC. The first bays of the north-west and south-east sides have flights of steps leading to doors with rectangular overlights providing access into each side of the building. A much lower range on the south-west side of the courtyard has a pitched roof and large ground floor openings for car parking. The first floor is lit on the left by a two-over-two pane sash window, and on the right a cambered brick arch indicates the position of a former window now bricked up. Above this are four smaller windows, mostly two-over-two pane sashes.

The interior has high ceilings, some now suspended, and large rooms, some of which have been partitioned in the 20th century, particularly on the first floor. The original internal walls are of painted brick and some original wooden floorboards are exposed. The entrance doors in the outer bays open into a small hall with partially surviving geometric tiled floors. A door straight ahead leads to a flight of stairs enclosed by panelling with long chamfered panels, and a large door with six raised and fielded panels opens into the room along the frontage. Secondary staircases at the south end of both the north-west and south-east sides of the building feature some with square balusters and newel posts and panelled doors. Other plank and batten doors with strap hinges survive. In the south room on both sides are projecting chimney breasts with bricked up fireplaces. Other original features include a single square chamfered pillar on the ground floor of the south-east side, and a chamfered bridging beam and a round pillar on the first floor. The suspended ceiling on the second floor has some dislodged panels through which a king post roof truss with diagonal struts is visible.

The suspended ceilings and 20th century internal partitions are not of special architectural and historic interest.