Description

LANCASTER

SD4761NE NORTH ROAD
1685-1/7/215 (South side)
27/11/89 Nos.1-23 (Odd)
Waring and Gillow's Showrooms

II

Furniture showrooms and offices. 1882, altered C20. Probably
by Paley and Austin. For Gillow's, whose name appears on the
lintel of the internal doorway. Coursed dressed sandstone with
ashlar dressings. Slate roofs with tall, twin-flue chimney
stacks on either side of the entrance bays.
The 18-bay facade in a free Elizabethan style has 3 storeys
plus cellars and attics. The facade is articulated by 4
approximately equally spaced shallow 2-bay projections which
terminate in coped and finialed gables, with 3-light or
2-light attic windows. The doorway is in the second
projection; its jambs are flanked by narrow windows and
project forward like consoles to support a 2-storey canted bay
with paired windows on each floor. On the first floor these
are cross-windows, flanked by a narrow window, and have a
sliding sash below the transom; on the second floor they are
simply 2-light windows with sliding sashes. On the ground
floor the windows in bays 1-6 & 9-10 have been widened to form
shop windows, but the other windows are like those on the
first floor.
INTERIOR: on either side of the staircase are tall, well-lit
showrooms, their moulded ceiling beams are supported by a
single row of cast-iron columns with a fluted shaft and
studded band. The staircase is Imperial in form, with heavy
newel posts and balusters like inverted obelisks; it rises
against a large 21-light mullioned and transomed window. The
showrooms, once linked to the large 5-storey factory on St
Leonardgate (qv), are an integral and imposing part of the
centralised premises of the Gillow company, one of the major
provincial furniture makers in the C18 and C19 centuries,
which was active here until its closure in 1962.

Listing NGR: SD4789561956

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26507086

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)