Public Conveniences

Public conveniences built around 1901, situated on the north side of the River Trent at the corner between Victoria Embankment and London Road.

The buildings are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with stone dressings and felt roof covering. The gentlemen's is a single-storey rectangular building adjoining The Riverside public house on its north-west side, while the ladies' occupies a rectangular plan at the south-west end of the public house.

The gentlemen's features a lantern running the entire length of the roof, now hidden behind a parapet and boarded over. The parapet is topped with a stone moulding and rises into triangular gables at each end. A plinth of blue engineering brick and two stone bands running along the middle form the base. The principal north-west elevation is divided into five bays by Romanesque buttresses. The two end bays project slightly and contain doorways with blocked stone surrounds, jambs and moulded stone lintels. The original five-panelled doors survive but have been boarded up. The ladies' follows a similar design with Romanesque buttresses at each end of the principal south-west elevation and a central doorway in a slightly projecting bay. Cast iron rainwater goods survive on both buildings.

Interior of the Gentlemen's

The interior walls are lined with full-height brick-shaped tiles in bands of brown, yellow, pale blue and white. The floor is grey terrazzo. The wooden ceiling has a raised geometric pattern on either side of the central roof lantern, which retains its opening mechanisms. Six cubicles line the south-east wall with dividing walls tiled to match, featuring mosaic floors of cream and pale blue with turquoise and red borders. The original five-panelled doors have recessed, moulded panels and are lined with sheet metal on the outside face. All joinery is painted brown. The north-west wall displays seventeen urinals of dark grey marble, each bearing circular plaques marked "George Jennings Patentee, Palace Wharf, Stangate, Lambeth, London". In the north corner, a panelled partition with small rectangular moulded panels at the bottom and large panels above encloses the washroom, which has a mosaic floor matching the cubicles and a unit of four circular wash-hand basins with brass taps set into a dark grey marble counter. A marble splashback with wooden shelf above and panelling below completes this feature. A similar partition in the south corner, with glazing along the top, was probably the attendant's room.

Interior of the Ladies'

The ladies' is similarly decorated with tiled walls and dark grey marble units, but features a more decorative mosaic floor of pale blue and cream with a border of turquoise, red and yellow. Six cubicles line the north-east wall and four the south-west wall, all retaining their original doors. At the south-east end, the attendant's room and washroom contain a unit of three basins with mirrors above in a continuous wooden frame. Upper panels in the partition wall are fitted with glass.

Subsidiary Features

A red brick wall with blue engineering brick plinth runs between the north corner of the ladies' and the south corner of the gentlemen's. A dwarf wall with stone coping encloses a small area to the west, shown on historic Ordnance Survey maps as a planted garden. The walls previously had railings, now removed. The enclosure is entered on the north side through an original iron gate attached to the gentlemen's.