Despite its medieval styling, the building was designed to support the practical technologies of the 19th century. It had gas lighting, and a warm-air heating system, which provided fresh air drawn through ornamental stone air inlets below the windows and admitted behind the hot water pipes and 'coils' into the rooms. Warmed, fresh air was fed into the stairwells and through hollow shafts within the spiral staircases to ventilate the corridors. Pipes supplying gas for lighting were ingeniously concealed underneath the banister rails of the spiral staircases. Waterhouse designed the building structure to be fireproof, using a combination of concrete and wrought-iron beams.