Description

BOLTON

SD7109SE KNOWSLEY STREET
797-1/17/135 (East side)
26/04/74 Market Hall and all ground-floor
shops

GV II

Includes: Market Hall and all ground-floor shops BRIDGE
STREET.
Includes: Market Hall and all ground-floor shops CORPORATION
STREET.
Market hall and integral shops. Dated 1854. GT Robinson,
architect. Ashlar faced with cast-iron internal structure and
glazed roof over market hall, slate over shops.
EXTERIOR AND PLAN: main entrance front faces Knowsley Street:
symmetrically planned about a central entrance block, with
flanking 2 storey, arcaded 9-window ranges, and advanced outer
pavilions of 3 lights. Portico to main entrance with 4 giant
composite columns and outer square-section piers carrying
pediment. Central entrance in giant arch with leaded and
stained glass oriel window over (renewed) doors. Coat of arms
of town in entablature of doorway, and the city emblem and
scrollwork over central keystone of arch. Flanking round
arched windows on each floor, also within the portico.
Single shop unit each side, within the entrance block, the
shop fronts and pedimented upper windows set in full-height
arches.
Flanking ranges contain 3 shops, each with 3 arcaded windows
to first floor, their enriched timberwork set between fluted
stone pilasters. Scrolled pedimented heads to recessed doors
of shops (some now lost), and leaded upper lights to shop
windows. Scrolled brackets carry modillion fascia over shop
fronts. Advanced pavilions at each corner, with chamfered
angles. Similar shop fronts below, and arcaded upper windows
in stone. Subsidiary entrance to market hall in chamfered
angle to left.
Elevation to Corporation Street also has central entrance
block, with Tuscan pediment, flanked by 16-window ranges
terminating in subsidiary entrance then 3-window return of
advanced pavilion to left, and chamfered angle with entrance
in advanced pavilion to right. Similar arcaded windows, and
shop fronts, with lozenge overlights to recessed entrances.
Central oriel window to first floor in right-hand range, where
there has been some alteration and renewal of shop fronts,
together with the insertion of a mezzanine floor.
Return to Rushton Street has 6 blind arcaded bays with

lunettes over, to each side of central entrance.
INTERIOR: of market hall laid out on cruciform aisled plan,
with 2 aisles each side of central east-west axis; ornate
cast-iron columns supporting roof structure, with pierced
cast-iron spandrels and upper arcading. Pierced cast-iron
spandrels sprung from central 'crossing' columns form a
central octagonal space.
The market building is of considerable interest as an early
example of large-scale municipal market development.
(BOE: Pevsner N: South Lancashire: Harmondsworth: 1969-).

Listing NGR: SD7165109416

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Bolton Market Place at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q4940202

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

• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)