134-146 Curtain Road

This former furniture showroom, warehouse and workshops, now serving as offices and a bar/restaurant, was built in two phases for the wholesale furniture manufacturers C & R Light. Numbers 134-144 were constructed in 1881-2 to designs by C Creese Harrison, with number 146 rebuilt in 1887, also to Harrison's designs. The contractor was Lawrance & Son. The ranges at the rear are of pre-1887 date, with later phases of alteration.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of yellow stock brick with painted stone and concrete dressings. The windows are metal-framed, with those on the main elevation featuring cast-iron colonnette mullions. The hipped-roof building to the rear has timber windows. Internally, the floor structures vary between timber, concrete and steel, and in the frontage building are supported on cast iron columns. The roof structures are timber throughout.

Layout and Planning

The building comprises a main frontage block, built predominantly as a showroom and warehouse, with a complex of tightly-packed ranges behind that were likely used as workshops and for storage. The frontage block is eight bays wide and five storeys high, with a rectangular footprint. The six bays to the south originally had an open floor-plan supported on columns. This configuration largely remains on the ground floor, but above, the space is subdivided with lightweight studwork to create multiple offices.

In the south-east corner of the building is an open-well stair with a small hoist in the centre. This is probably a later insertion, as it has no fire separation from the main floor-plate, but is likely to be no later than early 20th century and is certainly in place by 1938. A door leading off one of the landings into number 2 Standard Place (which is not part of the listed building) is dated to 1922.

The two bays to the north (144 and 146 Curtain Road) are divided from each other, and from the southern six bays, by solid fire-walls. The first bay to the north acts largely as a service core and has an unusual arrangement, with a light-well filling just under half the width of the bay running up through the building immediately behind the façade. The footprint of the light-well extends down to the basement level, where windows face out of, rather than into, the well. It is possible that some of this basement fabric predates the 1881 rebuilding and may belong to C & R Light's earlier building on this site. Adjacent to the light-well at ground floor is an entrance hall, above which there are now toilets. The purpose of the light-well at the front of the building may have been to provide borrowed light (from the windows in the front elevation and from above) to small offices or WCs running into the depth of the building, which would otherwise be artificially lit and ventilated. Behind the light-well are a concrete stair and a lift shaft. The stair location is original, based on the external detailing of the half-landing windows, but the stair itself and the lift shaft are likely to be later reinforced concrete insertions. The northernmost bay has a vehicular entrance, with the ground floor supported on brick arches in the basement. The floors above are now given over to office space.

To the rear of numbers 144 and 146 is a long range, part two-storey and part three-storey, which runs eastward towards Rivington Place. The range appears to have originally been all two-storey, and based on map regression it is possible that part of the structure pre-dates the rebuilding of 144 and 146 (in 1881-2 and 1887 respectively). The third storey over part of the range is a later addition, in place by 1938. The range is lit from above by two parallel runs of pitched roof-lights. At the far east end is 9-11 Rivington Place, which does not form part of the listed building.

Behind 134-142 Curtain Road is a hipped-roof building with an unusual timber roof structure, exposed internally. Based on map regression, the building seems to be pre-1880 and there is evidence in the fabric to suggest the roof structure replaces an earlier one, although the date of this replacement is unclear. The 1887 Fire Insurance Plan shows the building had been incorporated into the C & R Light complex by that date. The building is linked to the rear of the frontage building by another two-storey structure with a glazed lantern over. Number 2 Standard Place, a three-storey range standing hard against the rear of the frontage building, and an adjacent single-storey roofless structure, are not included in the listed building.

Exterior

The main Curtain Road elevation has eight bays of varying width divided by giant rusticated brick pilasters beneath a modillion cornice. The glazing between the piers varies between one and three lights, with metal-framed windows and slender iron colonnettes. The windows have moulded stone lintels to the first and second floors and segmental brick heads to the upper levels. Brick panels beneath the windows are detailed with decorative terracotta bands that differ on each floor.

The ground floor has brick piers and shop windows with stone plinths. These originally had openings for the basements which have subsequently been filled in, and the pavement in front is set with glass lenses to light the basement (these are in place by 1938). There is an entrance in the centre of 134-146 with an arched pediment; a wider entrance at the end of 134, this under rusticated voussoirs; a door with moulded architrave and deep rectangular fanlight at 144; and a loading entrance into 146 with later rendering. All the doors are later. The clock was installed in the early 21st century.

The rear of the main block has slightly cambered brick arches over the windows, with a few to the rear of 134 replaced with concrete lintels. There are traces of 20th-century painted advertising relating to post-furniture uses. To the rear is a connected two-storey range with lantern and the pre-1880 hipped-roof building which adjoins it. These are of brick construction with slate roofs. Numbers 144 and 146 extend into the long part two-, part three-storey range with long roof-lights.

Interior

Key aspects of the building's original character are in evidence throughout the interior, including the robust cast-iron columns with splayed flanges and sliding iron fire doors. There are a number of late 20th-century stud partitions and fittings associated with the various current uses.

The upper floors retain their original timber roof structure with several bays of queen post trusses running front to rear, and with modern roof lights in original openings. Number 146 has similar trusses running the opposite direction. The original large windows with part-opening hoppers survive. The staircase behind the light-well has half-turn landings within a solid well. The stair in the south-east corner has quarter-turn landings with full-height timber newels and wraps around a small open well with central hoist. The interior of the bar/restaurant at 134-144 is a 21st-century fit-out, but the original structure remains apparent.

The ranges to the rear vary in character, reflecting their structural make-up and the possible original and subsequent uses. Generally, the timber roof structures are exposed, and the upper floors are lit by roof-lights and lanterns. Lower floors borrow light where possible in this tightly-packed complex. The roof structure of the hipped-roof building is impressive as a seemingly ad hoc solution to a wide span, and cut beams in each of the four corners are presumed to have belonged to the earlier roof. Lines set into the upper floor behind 144 and 146 suggest the location of tracks for moving equipment or machinery. In several areas in the ground floor ceiling of the range behind 144, there appear to have been pairs of slots, now covered over; their function is not clear.