Numbers 1-9 Devonshire Buildings, Island Road Mission and the Devonshire Public House, Barrow Island, Cumbria

Entry Name: Numbers 1-9 Devonshire Buildings, Island Road Mission and the Devonshire Public House

Listing Date: 6 May 1976

Last Amended: 20 December 1993

Grade: II*

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1218436

English Heritage Legacy ID: 388534

ID on this website: 101218436

Location: Barrow Island, Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, LA14

County: Cumbria

District: Barrow-in-Furness

Electoral Ward/Division: Barrow Island

Parish: Non Civil Parish

Built-Up Area: Barrow-in-Furness

Traditional County: Lancashire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Cumbria

Church of England Parish: Barrow-in-Furness St John the Evangelist

Church of England Diocese: Carlisle

Tagged with: Apartment building

Description

BARROW IN FURNESS

SD1968 MICHAELSON ROAD, Barrow Island
708-1/13/91 (East side)
06/05/76 Nos.1-9 (Consec) Devonshire
Buildings, Island Road Mission & The
Devonshire PH

GV II*

Tenement block including mission and public house. 1872-74. By
Paley and Austin of Lancaster (plans); main contractors Smith
and Caird of Dundee (Trescatheric). Sawn, ashlar red
sandstone, graduated slate roof with brick stacks.
3 storeys and attic, 3:15:5:15:4 bays with 4-storey corner
tower on left and angled corner bay on far right; the end
pavilions and centre are taller; recessed 15-bay sections in
repeated rhythm 2:1:2 divided by buttressed party walls. Near
symmetrical composition. Rock-faced plinth rises to chamfered
sill band; sill bands to upper floors; 4-pane sashes. End
pavilions and centre have 2-light mullioned windows:
shouldered lights and relieving arches to ground floor;
square-headed lights with round-arched hoodmoulds to 1st
floor; round-arched lights with coupled hoodmoulds to 2nd
floor. String course and terracotta corbel table to eaves of
mansard roof with hipped-roof dormers.
Within the 15-bay sections, all 2nd-floor windows have
shouldered lights; the single bays project, have 2-light
mullioned windows and rise as full dormers with
shouldered-light windows under relieving arches, hoodmoulds
and coped gables. Eaves, dormers and roof as centre.
The buttresses rise to coped, party-wall parapets;
multiple-flue brick ridge stacks. Corner tower on left is
octagonal and has door to Michaelson Road with round arch and
triangular hoodmould; round-arched windows to upper floors;
short spire with lucarnes and finial. Flanking the base of the
tower are broad, segmentally-arched shop openings with
hoodmoulds (now Island Road Mission).
Right pavilion (The Devonshire PH) has been cement-rendered;
its corner bay corbelled out at each floor and terminating in
hipped-roof garret. Rear: pavilions have angled staircase
recesses with wrought-iron railings to landings set on corbels
or segmental arches; round arches at top under hipped-roof
canopies on large brackets; centre staircase similar but with
canted balconies; roof dormers as front.
The 15-bay sections rise 4 full storeys, their staircases as
centre but set lower, the canopy brackets have curved braces.
The first block of tenements to be built on Barrow Island but
predated in Barrow-in-Furness by the Scotch Flats at Hindpool
(c1871; now demolished). Plans include a front elevation dated
January 1872; on drawings of September 1874 for the adjacent
Devonshire Buildings (Nos 10-14, qv) it states that the
details are '... same as the buildings now in course of
completion'.
Use of the Scottish tenement system in Barrow can be explained
by the easier access by sea at this time resulting in an
influx of Scottish labour to work for the Barrow Iron
Shipbuilding Co under their 1st manager Mr Robert Duncan of
Glasgow; certainly Barrow attracted its various workforces
from wherever skills existed but opportunity lacked. The tower
complements that of Devonshire Buildings (Nos 10-14); the 2
ranges form an extremely impressive, rare and early complex of
superior industrial housing and bear testimony to the
versatility of this important architectural partnership.
6 later blocks of tenements are set to rear: see under Barque
Street, Brig Street, Schooner Street, Ship Street, Sloop
Street and Steamer Street (qv).
(Building Plans Register: 1872-1874: 595 AND 750; Trescatheric
B: How Barrow was Built: Barrow in Furness: 1985-: 26-27).

Listing NGR: SD1955668196

External Links

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