Former doctor's surgery, Ancoats and Clayton, Manchester

Summary

Doctor’s surgery and house of around 1887, adapted and converted from an early-C19 house, with further later alterations. Arts and Crafts-inspired style.

Description

Doctor’s surgery and house of around 1887, adapted and converted from an early-C19 house, with further later alterations. Arts and Crafts-inspired style.

MATERIALS: red brick walls with stone dressings, slate roof, timber windows.

PLAN: L-plan with three-storey range fronting the street and narrower two-storey early-C20 rear outshut.

EXTERIOR: standing on the western edge of the Ancoats Conservation Area on the busy thoroughfare of Manchester’s inner ring road, close to the Derros building. The building faces south-west but for ease and as per historic directories, the front is described as facing west.

The four-bay front elevation is narrow and comprises a single, recessed four-window facade in Flemish bond with a moulded brick cornice, stone head-and-sill bands to each floor, and a canted plinth. The ground floor has two outer windows (each with a semi-circular arch over with moulded-brick flowers in the tympanum), an inner window and a four-panel door with overlight. The windows are single-pane sashes. The first floor has a central, canted timber oriel window with fishscale slate roof and leaded upper lights. The second floor has two pairs of windows, with leaded upper lights.

The north wall is abutted by the Hudson building to the north. The south wall is blind, and rendered, with a truncated chimneystack to the east of the gable.

The (east) rear wall is of three storeys at the left, with a timber canted oriel spanning the first and second floors, with sash windows. Below the oriel is a recessed doorway (boarded) with an overlight. At the right is a two-storey lean-to outshut (believed to be 1880s in date) in English Garden Wall bond. Between its roof and the eaves of the main range is a long window of four small lights. In the angle is a chimney stack rising against the party wall with the Hudson building. The outshut has a four-pane sash at first-floor. Its ground floor is obscured by a further early-C20 lean-to outshut with a blind wall. At ground floor the outshut extends leftwards with a former lean-to roof that now has a flat roof, glazed below the eaves. The side (south) wall of the outshut has a segmental doorway and a casement window at ground-floor, and a four-pane sash overlooking the flat roof.

INTERIOR: the hallway retains a decorative tiled floor and there is terrazzo in the rear kitchen, which also has a stone Tudor-arched fireplace. Between this room and the stair is the cellar stair, with lime-washed walls and overlooked from the hall by a pair of casement windows. The former rear window of the hall has coloured glazing, overpainted in white. The architraves of the doorways from the kitchen into the housebody and cellar also survive, but glazed and timber internal doors have been replaced. The stair is closed-string with turned balusters and ramped handrail.

Most walls and ceilings have been stripped of plaster and laths, revealing some concrete blockwork in the south wall and south-east chimneybreast, and witness marks of a former stair position against the north wall prior to the 1887 remodelling. Most rooms retain fireplaces – 1940s tiled in the parlour, but (probably 1880s) cast-iron elsewhere, with a marble surround in the first-floor front room, which also has a tiled hearth. This room also has upper window lights of leaded and coloured glass, with central panes hand painted with fruit and flowers, and a modern inserted suspended ceiling. The room above has similar painted upper lights with designs of flowers and fruit trees. The sash windows in the 1880s outshut at the rear retain some etched and coloured glass with fleury-cross designs. The overlight to the former vestibule door survives, with some paint on its coloured glass.

History

Beginning in the last years of the C18 what is now recognised as the world’s first industrial suburb began to develop in Ancoats around a series of highly innovative steam-powered textile factories alongside the Rochdale Canal. Subsequently other industries followed, including foundries, glass works and dye works. All of this industry was interspersed with crowded, unsanitary housing as the suburb boomed - from 1831 to 1861 the population of Ancoats rose from 11,000 to 56,000. Social welfare provision was gradually provided throughout the C19, initially on charitable and voluntary lines, and then with increasing state and religious organisation. Recognised in its day as a centre of constructional and manufacturing innovation, and subsequently imitated throughout Britain, Ancoats informed the development of factory-based communities throughout Europe and America from the mid-C19.

39 Great Ancoats Street is believed to probably have its origins in the early C19, but it appears that the building was substantially altered and converted for use as a doctor's house and surgery in the third quarter of the C19, probably around 1887. A Goad fire insurance map published in 1888 depicts the property substantially as it is today, with its front and rear timber oriel windows and a two-storey rear outshut. The works are believed to have been carried out for Thomas Price, a doctor who had previously been living at 22 Great Ancoats Street. He had first been appointed as one of six medical officers to the ‘guardians of the poor’ (officials administering on behalf of the Poor Law Union) in 1873, when he was around 26 years old. In 1882 he left the Cathedral district and became medical officer for relief district 2, and public vaccinator for the Ancoats district. Price remained in post until 1895 when another district medical officer for the poor law union, Walter Treliving Williams, took occupancy of number 39. In 1915, when the Manchester, South Manchester and Prestwich poor law unions were amalgamated, Williams sold the building and moved to Prestwich. The building subsequently became a lodging house.

A lean-to toilet outshut was added to the rear in the early C20. Historic photos of number 39 show that until at least 1967 it had a small gabled dormer in the front pitch of the roof, which was removed before 1994. They also show that by the 1960s the south wall had been rendered. In the early C21 the building was converted to office use and in 2022 the interior was stripped back to the bare walls and stud partitions prior to renovation. Fireplaces were retained in situ, and in some cases later inserts removed.

Reasons for Listing

The former doctor’s surgery at 39 Great Ancoats Street, probably originally early-C19 and converted around 1887, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a rare survival in a heavily urbanised context of a C19 bespoke refurbishment of a house for use by a doctor;

* for its distinctive Arts and Crafts styling, incorporating oriel windows to both the front and rear, decorative brickwork, and stained and leaded patterned glazing;

* it survives well externally and retains its late-C19 interior plan-form, as well as a number of interior features, including decorative tiled floor, staircase and fireplaces in most rooms.

Historic interest:

* it illustrates the development of the world’s first industrial suburb and also community welfare provision in late-C19 England.

Group value:

* for its strong visual relationship with, and complementary function to, the neighbouring Derros building (NHLE 1119732).

External Links

Historic England Listing

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