Gwasg Gee Printing Works

Gwasg Gee Printing Works

A large printing works complex of irregular quadrangular plan, predominantly three and two storeys, constructed of limestone rubble and brick with slate roofs. The principal street-facing ranges are whitened.

The primary section faces the street on the left and consists of a three-storey range with rubble ground and first floors and a brick second floor, the latter an addition of the mid or third quarter of the 19th century. All openings have segmental heads, those to the ground and first floors with dressed stone voussoirs; projecting stone sills run throughout. The range comprises an asymmetrical four-bay main section with a further bay to the left, angled to follow the street line. This left bay has an entrance with boarded door and pegged frame, with a four-pane fixed window to its left. Above are small two-part eight-pane windows; that to the first floor is unglazed and that to a mezzanine floor above has a replaced, plain-glazed left-hand section. The upper floor has a large 20th-century-pane fixed window. The main right-hand section of this block has four large early 20th-century six-pane windows to the ground and first floors, with tilting three-pane upper sections. The second floor has four multi-pane windows; that to the far right retains its original twenty-pane glazing, and the remainder each has a small casement insertion.

Adjoining this range flush to the right is a contemporary two-storey, four-bay block with a later, probably third-quarter 19th-century, three-bay addition to the right. A large depressed entrance arch to the left gives tunnel access to the rear courtyard, with stone voussoirs and projecting stone key. The entrance arch retains its original, restored, vertically-boarded gates with spiked top rail. Windows with six-pane glazing appear to both floors; the additional three-bay section has a marginally shallower roof pitch with two large skylights to the front.

A segmental brick arch with keystone leads to the courtyard. On the left are the first-floor offices, including that of Thomas Gee, accessed via a flight of stone steps partly covered by a slated canopy. A modern door to the right opens to the principal office, which has modern glazing above. A boarded and framed entrance to the right of the entrance arch, on the rear wall of the main range, has a small wooden canted oriel above it with plain sashes and slated roof. Flanking this are large multi-pane cambered windows. Adjoining the office range to the southwest, and built into a rise with stepped access to an upper terrace beyond, is the Lino Room. This is a small, single-storey rectangular block of rubble and slate with brick quoins and surrounds, having a boarded door to the gabled front with cambered head and large flanking windows of similar heads and twenty-pane fixed glazing. Large modern steel-framed windows appear to the higher right side.

Immediately to the west, closing the quadrangular complex on the southwest side, is a large two-storey block presently containing the Upper and Lower Comp Rooms. This is a mid or third-quarter 19th-century brick range with a large off-centre entrance to the left, flanked by one and two windows to the left and right respectively; modern boarded doors with four-pane overlight. The windows have two and three-pane vertical plain glazing; all openings have cambered heads. The upper floor has three large, cambered, multi-pane windows. Adjoining this range at right angles to the right is the rubble-built bindery block, with a cambered entrance to the ground floor and modern windows to the right and to the first floor. Extruded in the angle between this and the Comp Room block is a 20th-century corrugated iron lean-to. The range adjoins at right angles the front, street-facing section, housing the Poster Room, thereby completing the quadrangle. Extruded in the angle between the two ranges is a modern single-storey WC block.

The offices have been modernised, though Thomas Gee's office has remained largely intact. The Upper Comp Room, in the large brick block, has a three-bay roof with bolted collar trusses. Further collar trusses and old pine floor boarding appear in the Poster Room and Bindery, though the ceilings are mostly boxed and plastered and some original spaces have been subdivided with modern partitioning; some slate and stone flagging survives to the ground floors. The Lower Comp Room contains four early and mid 20th-century Heidelberg presses, with a further three Lino-type Heidelberg presses in the Lino Room.