Former Blue Bird Toffee Factory: Welfare Building

This building is a former factory canteen and assembly rooms, constructed between 1925 and 1927 to the designs of S N Cooke for Harry Vincent Limited. It was originally part of the Blue Bird Toffee Factory.

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings. The north end features a concrete arched-beam roof covered in slate and concrete tiles. Internally, corridors, lobbies and bathrooms are finished with glazed tiling, while early 20th-century joinery is present throughout, including casement windows and doors with metal fittings. The corridors have original floorboards, and the formal room at the north end has wood-block flooring. The open arcades at the front have stone-flagged floors.

The building is oriented north-east to south-west and is single-storey, with a mezzanine level at the north-east end that was originally a stage and has since been partitioned.

The principal elevation features a central gable with a clock in an open pediment. Flanking the gable are open arcades under a steeply pitched roof with a central bell turret. Cross wings with hipped roofs are positioned at each end. The brick elevations include brick pilasters, and openings with brick heads contain timber casement windows and doors. The rear elevation contains four entrance lobbies of varying designs; the main entrance lobby incorporates washrooms. The left roof slope includes seven dormers topped with pyramidal roofs.

The main lobby, including tiled washrooms on each side, leads to the principal arch-braced room, formerly a concert hall, located in the north half of the building. This room has blank arches at each end and glazed tiled lower sections of walls and window ledges. An arch in the north wall is above the opening to the former stage, and below it are fitted cupboards providing access to a basement storage area. A mezzanine level, the original stage, is accessed via tiled lobbies and stairs located at each corner of the building. Later 20th-century partitioning creates office and lobby spaces within the concert hall, with additional partitioning in the southern section of the building. The southern half of the building contains various rooms, some created with glazed partitions. The doors, other joinery, and corridor tiling are all original to the 1920s. A formal room with picture rails is located at the south end of the building.