Crown Buildings

Crown Buildings is a probate registry, now used as government offices, dating to 1885 and designed by H Tanner. The building is constructed of ashlar and rusticated stone with a plain tile roof, terracotta cresting, terracotta and stone finials, and stone stacks.

The two-storey and attic building has a three-bay front, with the outer bays gabled. The left gable features a crocketed finial, and the right gable has plain bargeboards. A gabled doorcase flanked by dwarf buttresses contains segment-headed double doors set within a two-centred arch, with bell capitals to the jamb shafts. A carved armorial shield sits above the overlight of three stepped lights. A single-pane sash window is positioned above the doorcase. The ground floor to the left of the doorcase incorporates paired one-pane sashes; the first floor has a three-light mullioned and transomed window; and the second floor houses a three-light window with colonnette mullions, bell capitals, a flat hoodmould with foliate stops, and a segmental relieving arch. Blind tracery fills the gable apex. A canted oriel window sits at the left corner, resting on a rectangular pier with a band of blind quatrefoils and 1-pane mullioned and transomed sashes. The central bay features a two-storey canted bay window with mullioned and transomed one-pane sashes on both floors, topped with a three-light dormer. The right bay has paired three-light mullioned and double-transomed windows on the ground floor and two pairs of sash windows on the first floor, with planted framing filling the gable.

The left return front has a two-storey, two-bay section, with a three-storey, cross-gabled bay to the left and a two-storey, flat-roofed bay further to the left. A board door with overlight is set in a chamfered opening with a two-centred head beneath a hoodmould with leaf stops; a single-pane sash window is above. The gabled bay features mullioned and transomed windows of five lights on the ground floor, three lights on the first floor, and paired one-pane sashes with a colonnette mullion, bell capital, and flat hoodmould on the second floor. A slit vent is located in the gable, and it is topped with a crocketed finial. The return wall has two levels of paired one-pane sash windows between the ground and first floors, and a three-light mullioned and transomed window on the first floor. To the right is an external stack with offsets and a shield of the City arms sunk in a chamfered surround beneath a stepped hoodmould. All openings are quoined, and mullions and transoms are chamfered. Moulded strings encircle rainwater goods and extend around the building at ground and first-floor sill level, continuing as an eaves string over the left end bay. Below the second-floor windows, this forms a parapet coping to the far-left bay.

The interior was not inspected.