Sloop Street Tenements

The Sloop Street Tenements are a large tenement block situated facing Ramsden Dock Road, built between 1881 and 1884. Designed by Paley and Austin of Lancaster, with construction undertaken by Smith and Caird of Dundee (Trescatheric), the building is primarily red brick with graduated slate roofing. It is a four-storey structure, comprising 3 bays separated by a wider 23-bay central section, exhibiting a symmetrical design. The building demonstrates a group value, being a significant example of its type and one of two similar blocks alongside simpler ranges that back onto the sandstone Devonshire Buildings on Michaelson Road.

The main façade features a chamfered plinth and predominantly 4/2-pane sash windows. The recessed central section has alternating paired and single windows; the ground floor windows are characterised by flush sills and segmental arches, while those on the first floor have projecting sills. A dichromatic band sits below the second floor, from which six pilaster strips rise, interrupting a moulded string course. This string course continues, supporting a terracotta corbel table for the cast-iron ogee gutter. The third floor forms an attic storey, incorporating hipped-roof dormers within a mansard roof, with plain ridge stacks on the party walls. The end pavilions rise four full storeys, with their upper floors elevated above the central block, each featuring a round-arched opening leading to a central staircase; tripartite landing openings include iron balustrades and corbelled segmental arches. The pavilions' second floor windows pierce the moulded string course, and a dichromatic band appears below the third floor windows. The eaves are similar to the central block but are broken by a canopy formed by a catslide roof supported on four curved brackets, topped with a hipped roof and corbelled end stack.

The rear elevation, facing Sloop Street, presents four full storeys throughout, featuring eleven staircases, each with half-landing balconies and iron railings within round arches. Utility wings contain casements in formerly unglazed openings, beneath hipped roofs. Historic pavilion returns once included a shop door flanked by segmentally-arched shop windows under linked hoodmoulds, now boarded up. Modern ornamental trellis fencing and coloured paving stones are incorporated into the forecourts/closes at numbers 6-9 Sloop Street.

The Sloop Street Tenements were constructed to provide accommodation for workers at the Barrow Iron Shipbuilding Company. They represent a well-preserved and rare example of this building type in England.