Offices Of North West Water Ltd (Former Factory)

The Offices of North West Water Ltd, originally a cotton factory, was built in the 1850s and includes beetling and dampening rooms. It was repaired in 1864, with further additions made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Ferguson Brothers. The building features English garden wall bond brickwork on a chamfered plinth, with all dressings made of red sandstone and a stone-bracketed metal gutter. It has a hipped double-span slate roof that includes extensive skylights.

Originally, the factory was two storeys high with nine bays, but it was later expanded to thirteen bays with an additional storey added in two phases. The main facade faces the river and has regularly spaced casement windows with glazing bars. The ground-floor windows are boarded over, each featuring a sandstone sill within brick reveals and flat brick arches. One of the upper windows includes a round vent. A polished granite drinking fountain, dated 1870 and now damaged, projects from the lower storey. The building has similar five-bay returns.

Although this structure does not appear on a drawing of the factory from around 1854, it was present in 1863 when it suffered damage from floods. Plans for its repair can be found in the Cumbria County Record Office. The date on the fountain may indicate the time of the extension to thirteen bays, and the different coloured brickwork suggests that the upper storey was added after this extension. Photographs reveal that the right six bays were raised before 1907, while the left seven bays were raised by 1920.