Block A: Sluice Building and Stores with culverted sluices, boundary walls and gatepiers, Underfall Yard

Block A: Sluice Building and Stores with Culverted Sluices, Boundary Walls and Gatepiers, Underfall Yard

Block A stands on the southern boundary of Underfall Yard, running parallel with Cumberland Road and the New Cut. It comprises a sluice housing and pattern stores built in the 1940s, offices and workshops from around 1900, together with a system of culverted sluices, boundary walls and gatepiers.

The building is constructed in red Cattybrook brick laid mainly in Flemish bond, with a slate roof above the western range. It has a linear rectangular footprint and rises three storeys, consisting of two distinct halves: a seven-bay range to the west dating from around 1900, and a six-bay range to the east built in the 1940s.

The elevations are formally composed with minimal ornament. Windows are regularly spaced with segmental-arched openings and projecting brick sills to each bay, fitted with multiple lights in iron frames. The western half features a plain stepped brick cornice; the eastern half has a plain parapet in front of the flat roof.

The principal elevation faces north onto the yard. The western half is symmetrically laid out with a central arched doorway, taking-in doors and a hoist bracket above. The eastern half contains six window bays with a wide ground-floor opening flanked by taking-in doors above. Some openings have been altered, including a window converted to a doorway on the second floor, accessed by external metal stairs.

The southern elevation, facing the road, shows seven bays to the west and six to the east, with a break in masonry roughly halfway along covered by a downpipe. The ground floor is blind with three wide blocked openings to the sluice room. Upper floors have one window to each bay. The east return elevation has a doorway and small window at ground level and is blind above. A single-storey structure formerly abutting this elevation has been removed.

A small brick fire-watcher's post stands on the roof of the eastern range.

Interior

The eastern range exposes a concrete frame with deep cross beams to the ceilings. The sluice chamber on the ground floor retains cast iron beams, transoms, saddles and slide-ways. Four numbered sluices operate, with the third set at greater depth to scour silt. Original cast iron paddles from 1900 have been replaced with new castings. Upper floors are open plan; the first floor retains timber shelving units, and the second floor has been converted to a canteen area.

The western range is constructed with timber floors bearing onto a steel beam and column system designed for heavy loading. The ground floor has been reconfigured with changing rooms and toilets; upper floors are largely open plan. The second floor is open to the roof, formed from a series of king post trusses with timber matchboarding. An overhead travelling gantry crane by Wadsworth of Bolton spans the space, with a timber open well stair and lifting-frame mounted above.

The four brick-lined sluice conduits run from the harbour wall to the north, beneath the sluice house, and through the retaining wall to the New Cut to the south.

East of the building, the yard is enclosed by a length of brick wall with a wide entrance gateway flanked by stone-capped brick piers and a pedestrian doorway with arched head.