Argyll Motor Car Factory, North Main Street, Alexandria

Argyll Motor Car Factory, North Main Street, Alexandria

The Argyll Motor Car Factory is a substantial industrial and office building designed by Halley & Neil and completed in 1905–06. It is constructed on a long rectangular plan and rises to two storeys with an attic storey, executed in a richly detailed Baroque style.

The building is built of red sandstone ashlar with pink ashlar dressings and marble columns. A deep entablature with mutuled cornice runs around the building, topped by a parapet. The centre block carries an ashlar parapet with a raised die and large ball finials, while the flanking wings have a pierced balustraded parapet.

The main west elevation is the most ornate. It features a 5-bay centre block, advanced at the centre, with flanking wings. The centre block comprises a 3-bay channelled entrance with flanking bays raised to pagoda-roofed pavilions. The entrance itself is aediculed, with an open pediment supported on paired Giant order Corinthian columns. The round-arched entrance has decorative cast-iron gates and blocked voussoirs with a keystone carved as a mask. The keystone sits above banded columns with fluted console brackets that support a balustraded balcony above.

A round-arched window rises above this entrance, framed by an aedicule with radiating voussoirs and a large raised keystone. The window is surmounted by a sculpture of a Victory figure astride a motor car, flanked by trumpet-blowing angels and allegorical figures of engineering and manufacturing, with globes. Each flanking bay has two windows at ground floor and one at first floor, divided by channelled pilasters and terminated by columns. The broad outer bays contain tripartite windows at both ground and first floor levels. Above the pavilions, paired columns frame the windows at each corner, with advanced eaves supported on console brackets; the centre consoles take the form of walrus and fish. A narrow window breaks the parapet at the centre, framed by a pedimented, battered, consoled aedicule. The returns are treated similarly, though with bipartite rather than tripartite windows at ground and first floor.

Rising behind the centre of the parapet is a prominent tower with paired columns supporting an advanced entablature at each corner. Large clock faces occupy each side of the tower, with a decorative armorial panel below each. A balustraded parapet crowns the tower, above which sits a lead onion dome with a louvred lantern.

The flanking wings extend to nine bays on each side, divided by Giant order pilasters that rise as dies in the balustraded parapet above. Each bay contains bipartite windows at ground floor and bipartite windows set into shallow segmental-headed surrounds at first floor. The terminal bays are broader, with full-height canted windows flanked by narrow side lights, and the parapet above is raised as a pediment. An additional 5-bay range extends to the left wing, containing tripartite segmental-headed windows with keystones and pilaster bay divisions. This range terminates in a 2-storey, 2-bay house.

The south side elevation displays three bays, with a portico in antis at the centre ground floor, containing an architraved inner door. A balustraded loggia rises above, supported by rusticated columns with corniced caps decorated with lion head motifs.

To the left of the main building stands a single-storey lodge house of L-plan. It is built of red sandstone with a base course. Two half-glazed doors occupy the left side, while the right side features a piend-roofed block with a boarded door and window. The lodge has multi-paned timber windows (the upper lights hopper-hung) and is roofed in red tile.

The main factory building originally had multi-paned metal windows, many of which are now blocked. It has a slate roof, though parts are now missing. The pavilions are covered with sarking and felt.

The interior was originally finished to a high standard. A large hallway contains clustered Scagliola marble pier columns that rise through two storeys, with segmental-headed pediments supporting a dome over the central hall. A marble staircase, now removed, once occupied this space. A decorative glazed tiled dado runs around the hallway. The upper floor corridor features a tiled dado, heavy cornice, and is lit by round lanterns with wooden surrounds to the doors. Decorative coffered plaster ceilings are present throughout the building.

The boundary includes channelled ashlar gatepiers with corniced caps and consoled heavy ball finials. A low boundary wall of squared and snecked stone with ashlar coping runs around the site. The gates are of decorative cast iron, with simple cast-iron railings flanking the entrance.