Numbers 10-14 Devonshire Buildings

BARROW IN FURNESS

SD1968 MICHAELSON ROAD, Barrow Island 708-1/13/95 (East side) 06/05/76 Nos.10-14 (Consecutive) Devonshire Buildings

GV II*

Tenement block. c1875. By Paley and Austin of Lancaster (plan); main contractors Smith and Caird of Dundee (Trescatheric). Sawn, red ashlar sandstone; graduated slate roof with brick stacks. 3 and 4 storeys with attics; 3:15:3 bays with 5-storey corner tower on right and angled corner bay on far left; the end pavilions are taller; recessed centre in repeated rhythm 2:1:2 divided by buttressed party walls. Near-symmetrical composition. Rock-faced plinth rises to chamfered sill band; sill bands to upper floors; 4-pane sashes. End pavilions have 2-light mullioned windows: shouldered lights and relieving arches to ground floor; relieving arches to 2nd floor; round-arched lights with coupled hoodmoulds to 3rd floor. String course and terracotta corbel table to eaves of mansard roof with hipped-roof dormers. Centre: 2nd floor windows have shouldered lights; the single bays project, have 2-light mullioned windows and rise as full dormers with shouldered-light windows under relieving arches, hoodmoulds and coped gables. Eaves, dormers and roof as end pavilions. The buttresses rise to coped, party-wall parapets; multiple-flue brick ridge stacks. Corner tower on right is octagonal and has door to Michaelson Road and round-arched windows to upper floors; short spire with finial. Angled corner bay to far left is corbelled out at each floor and terminates in square garret with single sash and hipped roof. Rear: pavilions have angled staircase recesses with wrought-iron railings to landings set on corbels or segmental arches; round arches at top under hipped-roof canopies on large brackets. Centre rises 4 full storeys and has similar staircase with canted balconies. Second block of tenements to be built on Barrow Island after Devonshire Buildings (qv). Drawings survive and are dated September 1874. The tower complements that of Devonshire Buildings; the 2 ranges form an extremely impressive, first rate (?) and early complex of superior industrial housing and bear testimony to the versatility of this important architectural partnership.

Listing NGR: SD1961868327