Edmund Potter Warehouse (Charlotte House) 10 Charlotte Street and George Street

The large pile of warehouses of brick and stone just completed at the corner of George Street and Charlotte Street, and belonging to Mr Edmund Potter, has the peculiar treatment of the bands or fascias of very slight relief from which the mouldings of the strings proper project; and distinctive character is given to the basement by its masonry, where small stones are used for the plain wall surface, so as to form a good background and relief to the moulded architraves and dressings. Part of this block of buildings is of five storeys in addition to the basement, the remainder being one storey lower, and the junction of the two levels is attained by continuing the upper one of the bands, with bold pateras, along the whole distance of the two fronts. Some of the architraves in the upper windows are unmoulded, or only chamfered at the angles with a roll inserted, or are in the form of splays; and the piers have projecting panels in the brickwork. The retrenched friezes and pediments are in this case used to the windows of the third storey. Those of the second storey have segmental heads and cornices continuing as a string, and breaking forward on trusses, as the sill of the windows above; and the principal or ground storey, has segmental-headed windows with moulded architraves and cornices, and enriched spandrels; whilst the elevated portion of the basement storey is treated with horizontal rusticated work. [Manchester Guardian 4 March 1858 page 4]

Of brick with stone dressings, the design had more in common with the mid nineteenth century apartment buildings of Paris and Vienna than the Italian palaces of the renaissance. The building has a solidity of scale and lack of frivolity that was characteristic of Manchester commercial architecture. Hitchcock gives date as 1859.

Reference    A.P.S. Dict.
Reference    Manchester Guardian 4 March 1858 page 4