Knee Depository

A terrace of six shops and an arcade, now a depository warehouse, built in 1878. Designed and constructed by J.W. King, the building is of limestone ashlar with red and black brick dressings and a slate hipped multi-roof. The rectangular plan includes shops and an inner arcade across 13 bays by 6. The building is three storeys high, with a one-window range on each floor. The south and west elevations feature decorated, polychromatic shop fronts, with shop front pilasters rising to incised capitals and triangular finials linked by a frieze with incised vine decoration. Pilasters above have moulded capitals to a brick parapet with stone brackets and a coping. A second-floor brick band has top and bottom courses of black brick. Windows have moulded lintels with incised decoration and brackets support small sill balconies with cast-iron railings and small finials. The first floor has tripartite windows, and the second floor has paired windows. Number 1A is set back the depth of one shop front, and the arcade behind has matching fenestration in the returns, with a glazed roof over the shop front. The west elevation has two shops, a single-storey shop, and garage doors on the left side of the ground floor. The interior is reported to comprise a two-storey shopping arcade with cast-iron gallery railings, a stone imperial stair at the north end with a landing beneath a large rose window, and a continuous central skylight illuminating the arcade. This is an uncommon late example of a glazed shopping arcade, largely unchanged from the original design. King also used similar motifs in the Montpelier Hotel on St Andrews Road; some of the ornament is derived from Owen Jones' 'Grammar of Ornament'. The building was acquired by Knee Bros in 1912, who were pioneers of ‘container haulage’ using road and rail from 1844.