Heavy Engineering Shop at Vickers Ship and Engineering Limited

This is a large engineering workshop complex, likely dating around 1900, although it probably incorporates a building from about 1875. It was originally built for Vickers, Sons and Maxim Ltd. The structure is primarily constructed of snecked red sandstone with corrugated sheet roofing. It occupies a significant rectangular site bordered by Michaelson Road and Bridge Road, with a re-entrant corner at the junction of those roads.

The Michaelson Road frontage extends for 42 bays and has seven roof spans, while the return frontage to Bridge Road comprises eleven bays. The Michaelson Road elevation features a continuous, chamfered sill band to tall casement windows with glazing bars, set under segmental arches with keystones. A band runs beneath the arch imposts. Bay 35 exhibits a double-chamfered round archway flanked by narrower windows, slightly projecting forward. An overhanging course and blocks support a gutter and parapet walkway. The right gable ends at Engine Gate, while the left end has a hipped roof. The return frontage to Bridge Road has a large, round-arched window adjacent to Centre Gate, with an impost, keystone, and hoodmould within a recess beneath inclined corbel tables leading to a gable parapet featuring ashlar copings and a roll finial. Ten bays to the right of this are similar to the Michaelson Road frontage. Numerous fire doors have been added to the Michaelson Road and Bridge Road elevations.

The interior is characterized by a main section with three bays of riveted stanchions, sandstone dividing walls, and further bays featuring cylindrical stanchions. Lightweight steel roof trusses are present. The main range facing Michaelson Road originally housed ordnance shops used for constructing naval gun mountings. Three erecting shops, each measuring 1000 feet by 50 feet, were served by eight machine shops set at right angles. The facility could accommodate the construction of ten to twelve mountings for guns up to 12-inch bore. Set back by three bays from Michaelson Road is a three-bay section bounded by stone walls, which is likely the Machining and Erecting Shop documented in plans of the Barrow Iron Shipbuilding Co. This earlier shop originally measured 420 feet by 150 feet across three spans.

The workshops demonstrate the scale of operations at the shipbuilding and engineering works around the turn of the century and significantly contribute to the industrial character of the town, especially given the loss of many other buildings from other 19th-century industries.