49, Southwark Street

No. 49 Southwark Street is a warehouse built in 1867 by Ernest Bates of Manchester and London for Robert J Bates, now used as offices. The building features stock brick with stone dressings and a low-pitched slate roof, designed with a curved corner plan that includes a recessed tower and hoist range on the south side.

It stands four storeys high with a semi-basement and has an eight-window range, including the hoist bay. The top floor showcases a continuous arcade of 14 round-arched windows beneath segmental, pointed brick arches. The first and second floor windows are recessed, with each bay defined by tall chamfered brick piers topped with segmental-pointed cut brick arches. The ground-floor openings are round-arched and recessed, forming a continuous arcade of slightly pointed cut brick arches supported by brick piers with stone capitals and bases.

The building features intricate and sharply cut brickwork on the bracketed cornice, arched openings, and paterae in the spandrels between the ground-floor windows. The Gothic-style fenestration with plate glass remains intact, as does the fanlight above the main entrance on Southwark Street, located in the easternmost bay. This entrance is flanked by two piers made of Peterhead granite colonnettes with Corinthian capitals. The four-panel double doors, which have pointed lights in the top panels, are also authentically designed.

A projecting iron canopy on the fourth storey of the tower shelters the hoist range and is supported by an iron bracket; the balconies are a later addition. The top floor of the hoist bay features a notable exposed timber roof structure. The interior has not been inspected, but the building has been carefully restored during its recent conversion to offices, representing an excellent adaptation of High Victorian Gothic style for commercial use. It forms a group with Nos. 51 and 53 Southwark Street.