Former Corn Exchange

The building is a former corn exchange, converted to a swimming pool around 1965 and now vacant, with attached shops that are now offices. It was constructed in 1858. The building is of dressed stone and ashlar, with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs, and is designed in an Italianate style. It is two storeys high.

The main street facade has a seven-window arrangement, featuring a moulded plinth, rusticated quoins, a moulded entablature at both ground and first floor levels, and a balustraded parapet decorated with urns. To the right of the main facade is the swimming pool section, and to the left are the offices, separated by a taller square tower. The pool entrance is off-centre, with 20th-century glazed doors in a moulded ashlar surround topped with a large segmental pediment. Flanking the entrance are single triple-light windows with rounded heads in moulded pilaster surrounds and decorated keystones. To the right of the entrance is another doorway with a pedimented hood supported on brackets. Above the entrance are two segment-headed sash windows in moulded ashlar surrounds with bracketed hoods and keystones, with similar triple windows to either side, and another single window to the right.

The tower to the left has a round-headed doorway on its south side with a single sash window to the west. Above this are single sashes on each front. The tower, which projects above the parapet, has a round-arched, louvred bell opening on each face, chamfered corners decorated with brackets, and is topped with a square dome and iron finial.

The offices to the right have curved corners, with a single round-headed window to the right and double doors with a fanlight to the left, set between two-pane former shop windows. Above are two single plain sash windows in moulded ashlar surrounds with flat hoods.

The left return facade features three windows, with a large central window flanked by a blind window to the right and a doorway to the left. Above are three sashes in moulded surrounds.

The rear facade is dramatically curved, with four round-headed boarded windows.

The interior retains original features including a former dealing hall with a deeply moulded and coved ceiling with glazed panels, currently hidden by a false ceiling. A west gallery, originally supported on cast-iron columns now buried within a later dividing wall, has a cast-iron balustrade with a moulded wooden handrail, now incorporated into an upper glazed screen. The building also retains two stone staircases with iron balusters, panel doors in moulded surrounds, panelled window frames and shutters.

This is a good, relatively large-scale example of a corn exchange and a significant building within a market town. Despite its conversion around 1965, it remains surprisingly little altered.