Workshops On Diglis Island, River Severn

The workshops on Diglis Island, Worcester, were constructed around 1840 with later additions and alterations. They originally served as workshops, stables, accommodation, and a chapel. The buildings are constructed of red brick in English bond, with blue brick sills, and have slate roofs, blue clay ridge tiles, and a brick stack with a corbelled cap and pot to the rear roof slope of the southern building. Windows have cast-iron frames.

The buildings consist of two long, narrow structures connected by a covered entrance range, with a shorter, narrower, and lower building to the north. The east facade has a single storey and 14 windows (8:6). Brick detailing includes a plinth, a double corbelled course at the eaves, dentilled verges to the gable ends, and openings with semi-circular arches (single full-brick arches to windows, double half-brick arches to doors). Sills are emphasized by a double row of canted bricks. The windows have multi-pane glazing bars in an ornate lattice pattern and a small side-hung opening section in the centre. Two windows in the northern section retain some red and blue glass in the lower panes.

The main entrance is off-centre to the right, opening into a courtyard. Facing entrances are located in the gable ends of both ranges. The southern range has inserted, part-glazed and plank double doors to its north gable end, and an oculus with radial glazing bars and three concentric rings in its apex. The northern range has an entrance with a pair of round-arched plank doors, with the upper part glazed, set between blind, round-arched recesses. The west facade of the northern range has a 2/2 sash window and a pedestrian doorway.

The interior of the southern range consists of a single, open space with six exposed king-post trusses resting on internal brick piers. Storage rooms are located off to the rear (west) in an outshot section.

The workshops were built as part of the river engineering works and included a chapel, known as ‘Bethel’, for the navvies involved in the project, alongside accommodation and workshop spaces. The locks and weir on the River Severn at Diglis were completed in October 1844, under the direction of the Worcester engineer, E. Leader Williams. These were constructed to maintain navigable water levels regardless of the season.