Piano Building Warehouse And Canal Tow Path Bridge To South West Brintons Carpet Works

KIDDERMINSTER

SK EXCHANGE STREET 954/0/10008 Piano Building(warehouse)and canal tow 11-MAR-03 -path bridge to SW Brintons Carpet Wks

GV II Wool warehouse at carpet factory. 1867; for Brintons, carpet manufacturers. Red brick in English bond. Slate multi-span roof behind parapet. PLAN: Resembling the shape of a grand piano, with a rounded narrow end to the canal to west, a broad end to the east and a concave curved north side. Four storeys with stairs at the east end and a dock below, with access to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at the west end, through an earlier tunnel under the tow-path. EXTERIOR: 4 storeys and dock in basement. 17-bay south elevation with blind windows with segmental arches; 18-bay curved north elevation with segmental arch windows, small openings [some blind] on ground floor to the dock and rounded corner to right to narrow west end facing the canal; under the tow-path at the west end there is a brick round-arched tunnel to the canal. The opposite east end has similar windows on either side of loading door on each floor. INTERIOR: The timber floors are supported on cast-iron columns, the top floor columns supporting the multi-span collar-and-tie-beam roof. The basement was a dock linked to the canal by a brick tunnel at the west end under the tow-path. The floor over the dock comprises a series of jack-arches carried on thick cast-iron columns. NOTE: In 1830 Henry Brinton acquired the site on which this warehouse stands. The site was part of the works of Joseph Bowyer and became the nucleus of the present carpet works. The warehouse was built during the major expansion of Brintons carpet works in the 1860s and 1870s. SOURCE: Goff, A.D., The Development of the Carpet Works of Kidderminster 1735-1939; pp 93 and 94 [University of Birmingham Ironbridge Institute, dissertation]. A distinctive Victorian carpet works warehouse conspicuously situated in the centre of Kidderminster. SO8298976477