154 TO 162, DERBY ROAD

The building comprises three townhouses, at numbers 154 to 162 Derby Road, Nottingham, which were converted into shops and a cigar factory. The construction dates primarily to the late 18th and early 19th century, with additions and alterations in the late 19th century. The houses are built of red brick with ashlar dressings and slate roofs.

Numbers 160 and 162, on the left-hand side, date to the early 19th century, and feature four storeys and a two-window range. They include two projecting ground-floor shopfronts, dating to the late 19th century, and above, two canted bay windows with plain sashes. Above the bay windows are two glazing bar sash windows on a sill band, and above that again, two smaller sashes. All windows have stucco lintels and double keystones. A return elevation showcases similar glazing bar sashes with brick flat arches, along with a round-arched door and fanlight. The interior features two original open-well staircases with winders and a sinuous ramped handrail, as well as some panelled doors and remnants of early 19th-century fireplaces.

The central block, number 158, has a late 18th-century front with a four-story structure plus a basement and attic, spanning five window bays. A projecting front, added in 1897, incorporates a double doorway flanked by three plain sashes with basement lights. Above these are three floors of glazing bar sashes, with a sill band on the middle floor. Above again is an eaves cornice, followed by an early 19th-century attic with five boarded windows. All windows are set within brick flat arches. The rear features early 19th-century factory additions, three and four stories high, around a small yard, which have segment-arched windows, largely original. The rear elevation has eight irregularly spaced windows; mainly glazing bar sashes on the lower floors and glazing bar cross casements above, with loft doors on the upper floors. The interior of the ground floor contains a central corridor flanked by matchboarded offices with glazed screens and original fittings from 1897, and a matchboarded despatch room behind these. The basement includes elliptical brick vaults at the front. The first floor hosts processing and packing rooms with softwood floors, partly ceiled, and cast-iron columns. A plant room in the courtyard has remnants of steam plant. The second floor includes a front-facing packing room with fitted benches beneath the windows. A rear wing displays softwood beams and floors alongside a double row of cast-iron columns, some with brackets, and fitted sorting benches on the east side. On the third floor, a box-making room is equipped with fitted benches, with an opening into the rear wing supported by cast-iron columns. The attics contain a strutted king post roof.

Numbers 154 and 156, on the right-hand side, were built in the early 19th century, with a flat roof added in the mid-20th century. They are three stories high and span three window bays. The ground floor has two projecting shopfronts, dating from the late 19th century, with glazed tiles and plate glass windows. Above is a boarded central window flanked by broader glazing bar sashes, with three similar smaller boarded windows above that. All windows have painted stucco lintels and double keystones. The interior features a wooden dogleg staircase with stick balusters and fireplaces from the early and mid-19th century.