The Howitt Building (former Raleigh Cycle Company main offices)

The Howitt Building is the former head office of Raleigh Cycles, completed in 1931 to designs by the celebrated architect TC Howitt (1889–1968). The building was later purchased by Nottingham City Council and now operates as a business centre, African Caribbean centre, and music venue.

The structure is built of red brick with ashlar limestone dressings and detailing, beneath a plain-tile roof. It follows a linear, symmetrical plan with a central entrance portico flanked by office ranges.

The main facade comprises three bays. The portico is flanked by storied ranges where bays are defined by full-brick pilasters rising from a deep ashlar plinth. Between the pilasters are tall ground-floor windows, separated from smaller upper-floor windows by decorative metal relief panels depicting putti engaged in various stages of bicycle manufacture. These panels are the work of the Nottingham sculptor Charles Doman FRBS (1884–1944), a pupil of Joseph Else and later principal of the Nottingham School of Art. The putti were modelled on Howitt's young son Ian and are known locally as 'the little Ians'; Howitt's son was later killed in the Second World War. The building's metal window frames are of plain six and four-pane form; ground-floor openings are also barred. A deep, plainly-detailed ashlar entablature completes the facade, concealing the foot of the roof slope and gutter. The entrance portico has wide end piers between which stand two square columns with chamfered corners and plainly moulded capitals, supporting the entablature and a plain parapet. The frontage ranges terminate at wide ashlar corner piers through which the entablature is carried and returned the full length of the end elevations. The end and rear elevations are functionally detailed in red brick and incorporate minor extensions and service doorways. At the centre of the rear elevation, the upper floor has a tall margin-light window frame that lights the building's full-height entrance foyer and staircase.

The interior has undergone alterations to office layouts, with later partitioning, inserted ceilings, and modern office furnishings. The flanking two-storey ranges remain largely functional spaces. The principal areas of interest are the main entrance hall, board room, and upper-floor ballroom, which continue to represent the quality of design and materials befitting the world's leading bicycle manufacturer during the inter-war and post-war periods.

The full-height entrance hall is designed in restrained Art Deco style with a coffered ceiling supported by giant square columns with chamfered corners and decorative bands to the column heads. These columns flank the open central area and embrace and support the sections of the main stair. The open hall forms the approach to a double-return staircase, the central landing of which stands below a tall margin-light window with coloured glass to the margin glazing and the Raleigh company motif at its centre. Two pairs of side flights lead to flanking balconies providing access to the upper floor levels either side of the entrance hall. The side flights have metal stick balusters, their heads linked by decorative openwork metal bands set below wooden handrails.

The Board Room, located on the ground floor of the north range, is one of two rooms retaining fully-panelled interiors. The panelling throughout comprises large veneered rectangular fielded panels fashioned from Ancona walnut. The room includes panelled double doors with original door furniture and a marble chimneypiece with overmantle. The double doorway has moulded architraves with decorative marquetry inlay and a moulded cornice. Above the panelling and doorway is a deep cornice with bead and reel decoration. The adjacent room to the north has similarly-detailed panelling and joinery.

The former ballroom, now the Marcus Garvey ballroom, features a segmental ceiling and a stage at its southern end, set below a segmental proscenium arch with reeded decoration. Flanking the stage are double doors providing access to plainly-detailed stairs to the ground floor and to the rear of the stage. Above the doorways within the ballroom are relief panels repeating the images of putti manufacturing bicycles found on the building frontage. A doorway at the centre of the northern end wall of the ballroom is similarly adorned.