27-31, CHARLOTTE STREET B3

This is a workshop and warehousing complex dating from around 1840 to 1850, with shops at the rear. Number 31 is a three-storey building of red brick, with warehousing and shops on the ground floor and a further shop on the top floor. It has a low-pitched slate roof and a range of thirteen windows on the top floor. The building has a brick plinth, with the ground floor painted up to a deep first-floor sill band; a stucco sill band runs along the top floor, and moulded brick eaves. The top floor has four windows with three panes each, and conventional sash windows with glazing bars and flat gauged arches to the ground and first floors. An entrance door for the workshops and an office door are located at the east end of the range. The office door is made of four panels with a three-pane fanlight in a wooden frame with consoles to the cornice. A rebuilt, narrow two-bay link connects this range to the main office and showroom block, which is slightly set forward. The main block is three storeys high, with a symmetrical three-bay front. It has a stucco plinth and a painted brick ground floor. Moulded stucco sill bands run along the first and second floors, topped by a projecting moulded stucco cornice and a brick parapet with stucco coping. The doorway and ground and first-floor windows are recessed with segmental gauged brick arches. The sashes retain their original glazing bars, and there are similar segmental arched sashes on the second floor. The entrance door is double, made of four panels with a three-pane fanlight, and is approached by three steps.