Royal Insurance Building

The Royal Insurance Building is a shop and offices built in 1904 by HC Scaping of Grimsby, with JH Thompson as the builder, for the Royal Insurance Company. Later alterations were made to the shop windows in the 20th century. The building is constructed of red brick with buff terracotta dressings and a marble plinth, topped with a Welsh slate roof, and is an example of Edwardian FreeStyle architecture.

The building occupies a corner site, featuring a single bay facing Victoria Street and four bays facing Brewery Street. It has a high plinth with incised blockwork and a moulded string course, with channelled rustication to the ground floor. A round-arched entrance, located on the corner, now has a 20th-century door and boarded fanlight within an architrave, flanked by brackets supporting a carved, corbelled base to an octagonal angle turret. This turret rises through the second and third storeys. The ground floor to Victoria Street includes a plain shop window with 20th-century glazing within the original opening. The Brewery Street front to the left has similar windows and a doorway entrance.

The angle turret has three narrow 2/2 sash windows in architraves, finished with a moulded cornice and a frieze featuring ornate relief panels. The Victoria Street bay has a tripartite 2/2:6/6:2/2 sash window within a raised surround, incorporating apron panels and rusticated Ionic pilasters. Above is a pedimented panel, which forms an apron to a pair of 6/6 second-floor sash windows in keyed architraves. A rectangular first-floor oriel is located to the left of centre on the Brewery Street front, with a similar pilastered tripartite window. The panel above this oriel forms the parapet to a second-floor balcony, above which are two 6/6 first-floor sash windows, all within similar pilastered, pedimented surrounds. There are additional 6/6 first-floor sashes flanking the oriel, also in keyed architraves. All second-floor windows are united by a sill string course and three flush bands. The building has a dentilled cornice. The turret has slit lights to the second floor, an octagonal upper stage with a string course carrying small Ionic pilasters, a moulded cornice, and a dome with a ball finial. The flanking bays have coped gables with central round-headed niches; a plain coped parapet appears to the left of three bays.

The interior was not inspected. The building is of group value, principally for its external quality and its contribution to a distinctive Edwardian commercial street.