New Exchange Buildings

Offices, 1874 by WH Blessley, now in residential and office use.

MATERIALS: brick, in Flemish bond, with sandstone dressings, a Welsh slate roof with rebuilt transverse ridge stacks.

PLAN: the building occupies a corner position with a U-shaped plan around a small courtyard to the rear. The west elevation faces Queen’s Square where the principal entrances are located, and the south elevation faces onto Bridge Street East.

EXTERIOR: the building has four storeys with eight bays to Queen’s Square and seven bays to Bridge Street East. Additionally, both elevations have a quadrant bay.

Queen’s Square elevation: the ground floor has a deep plinth, with arched-arcaded window openings above. The original entrance in the fifth bay has a renewed panelled door and fanlight flanked by modern panelled doors also with fan lights within former window openings. The upper floors are divided between the second and third bay, and the seventh and eighth bay by pilaster strips. The first floor has a segment-arcade with continuous hoodmould, sill band and blind tympana. The second floor is round-arcaded with pointed hoodmoulds, whilst the third floor has square-headed windows under shaped lintels and a continuous hoodmould; both floors with moulded sill bands. There are timber sashes throughout. Below the hipped and gabled shallow-pitched roof is a corbelled eaves cornice, with a short-curved parapet over the quadrant bay.

The Bridge Street East elevation is seven bays with a quadrant right end bay. The elevation is similarly styled to the Queen’s Square elevation.