WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS

WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS, 11-15, SHRUB HILL ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1390158
Date first listed:: 30-Oct-1980
List Entry Name:: WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS
Statutory Address:: WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS, 11-15, SHRUB HILL ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1390158
Date first listed:: 30-Oct-1980
Date of most recent amendment:: 12-Jun-2001
List Entry Name:: WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS
Statutory Address 1:: WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS, 11-15, SHRUB HILL ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: WORCESTER ENGINE WORKS, 11-15, SHRUB HILL ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Worcestershire
District:: Worcester (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SO 85554 55275

Details

WORCESTER

SO8555SE SHRUB HILL ROAD 620-1/14/520 (North side) 30/10/80 Nos.11-15 (Consecutive) Worcester Engine Works (Formerly Listed as: SHRUB HILL ROAD Nos.11A,B, D, E; 12-15 (Consecutive)) II

Large engineering works, now housing separate industrial units. 1864 with later additions and alterations. Designed by Thomas Dickson for the Worcester Engine Works Company Limited. Red brick with dressings of stone and blue and yellow bricks. Multiple north-light roofs of slate and corrugated sheet with patent glazing on trusses and columns of wrought-iron and cast-iron. Iron-framed windows. STYLE: Italianate with polychromatic decoration. Series of large, full-height workshops together with ancillary and office accommodation arranged on 2 storeys. Principal elevation extends for approx. 125 metres along Shrub Hill Road from its junction with Tolladine Road. Mainly of 2-storey height. Central pedimented bay with slightly set back flanking wings the end bays of which break-forward to align with centre bay; further wings of diminished height to left and right, that to left, which turns the road-junction, surmounted by pedimented clock tower. 37 first-floor windows: (1:2:1:2:8:1:3:1:8:2:8). Stone detailing includes sills and continuous sill bands, moulded string course below frieze, cornice and parapet coping. Brick detailing includes, quoins, pilasters, bands between ground and first-floor windows, window and door surrounds, recessed panels below sills and above window heads, decorative frieze with modillions. Window openings have either segmental or semi-circular arched heads. The central bay has tall triple-light first-floor window flanked to each side by smaller single window with oculus over. These and majority of windows are multi-pane in metal frames with small horizontally pivoted opening section; some on the ground-floor have later brick-blocking. Windows to clock-tower block are 2/2 sashes on the first-floor and 4/4 on the ground-floor; windows to far-right wing are 2/2 and 2/1 sashes, all with arched heads and in plain reveals. Two main entrances in centre bay have paired replacement 6-panel doors. Door to right-wing is half-glazed replacement. 2 doors to left of centre are later insertions into former window openings. The return and rear elevations are in similar but simplified style. INTERIOR: retains structural ironwork including cast- and wrought-iron lattice girders and diagonal boarding to underside of roof covering. HISTORICAL NOTE: The Worcester Engine Works Company was set up in 1864 by a group of railway entrepreneurs to manufacture locomotives and rolling stock. It was linked by rail to the main line; these links also extended via a subway (still existing) to premises on the south side of Shrub Hill Road (the rail links are clearly shown on the 1886 Ordnance Survey Map). It later became the West Central Wagon Works whose principal work was the manufacture of railway carriages and wagons. The adoption of Swindon by the Great Western Railway for manufacture and repair sounded the death knell for Worcester, and the Shrub Hill works were closed by 1871. The Worcestershire Exhibition of 1882, inspired by The Great Exhibition of 1852 used the ex Engine Works building as a venue. Heenan and Froude, a Manchester based engineering company responsible for the manufacture of Blackpool Tower) occupied the premises from 1903 to 1984. The G.W.R. carriage and wagon workshops to the N.E. of the site were demolished in 1968 making the Shrub Hill buildings an important remnant of the railway era in Worcester. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 38, 333; Old Worcester - People and Places: Gwilliam HW: Old Worcester - People and Places: Worcester: 1977-: 75-76; Directory of the County of Worcestershire: Littlebury: Directory of the County of Worcestershire, 1873: London and Worcester: 808-809).

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 489128
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.