Warehouse Portland Street Manchester

The most important and one of the largest of the new buildings, is the warehouse in Portland Street now in course of erection from the designs of Mr Waterhouse. This is one of those large buildings almost peculiar to Manchester, which the necessity for storage of valuable goods in great quantity has called into existence. It is in a round-arched Gothic style, the doors and windows on the ground storey forming a series of semi-circular headed openings with flat soffits, having a bold roll moulding at the angle, stopping on a square impost supported by a shaft; the actual window opening being formed by an inner recessed jamb with a second roll moulding continued down to the sill without any break. When the imposts, now in the rough, are carved this ground storey will present a very good effect of combined richness and solidity, quite in keeping with the object of the building; although owing to the fact that the crown and springing of the archers have been kept at the same height throughout, while the openings are of varying width, the narrower arches are necessarily stilted to a degree not at all agreeable to the eye. Above this the majority of the opening are of that square-headed form, with angles shafts on the chamfer-plane of the jamb, which Mr Waterhouse is so fond of using, and which is indeed to be found in nearly all his latter designs. At each end the front is a projecting angle bay carried on a heavy stone corbel Except at the back, the building is faced entirely with ashlar work of apparently a Yorkshire stone; a rusticated basement being formed of a stone of a greyer tint; and internally the whole bearing of the floors will be on a system of cast iron beams and columns; but what is to be the construction of the floors themselves does not yet appear. So far as the building has progressed (it is up to the level of the third floor) it is a design very well adapted to its purpose: solid and durable and not incongruously overlaid with ornament. Are the small panels over first floor windows to be carved in the centre? At present they have a rather hard and bald appearance.

Assumed block of five warehouses of four storeys and attic with central pavilion, rusticated ground floor with round arched openings. Load bearing externall walls, stone faced. Internal iron beams and stanchions. Client – Frederick W Grafton; contractor Thomas Clay; cost £33,405. [Cunningham page 235]

Reference           Manchester Guardian October 1868 page 7 from the Builder