Halls Buildings

Halls Buildings are a group of warehouses and offices, now used as cafes and offices, built around 1870-1880 and altered over time. The structure is made of sandstone ashlar with some polished granite, featuring a rectangular plan and designed in an eclectic Venetian Gothic style. It stands five storeys tall with two wide central bays and narrow end bays that slightly project forward. The windows are arranged in a pattern of 1:4:4:1.

There is a cornice over the ground floor, which has a parapet that is blind-arcaded in front of the first-floor windows. Additional cornices are present at the first floor, with carved sill-bands on the third and fourth floors. A prominent bracketed main cornice with a low blocking course is also featured, along with pairs of carved pedestals above the outer bays and chimneys located at the rear of these.

On the ground floor, square-headed doorways lead to the outer bays, each adorned with banded pilasters and pairs of zoomorphic corbels that support cornices above segmental-headed overlights, with 20th-century shop fronts between them. The first-floor outer bays contain round-headed windows with two round-arched lights and shafts, topped by cornices similar to those above the doors. The upper floors feature 4-light windows in running arcades; the first and second floors have round-headed windows, the third floor has stilted-segmental windows, and the fourth floor has square-headed windows. All these windows include shafts, carved capitals, and imposts, with 1-light windows in the outer bays, mostly matching the style but with cornices on the third-floor windows. The interior has not been inspected. Halls Buildings form a group with Nos 77 to 83 to the right.