8-10 High Street

Shop premises built in 1896 to the designs of architect Henry Langton Goddard.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with moulded buff terracotta detailing, and has a slate roof. It occupies the rounded pinnacle of a long, narrow triangular site between the High Street and Silver Street.

The three-storey, seven-bay structure is designed in an eclectic style combining Baroque and Queen Anne elements. The central three bays forming the rounded front and the two bays facing the High Street receive flamboyant architectural treatment in terracotta, whilst the two subsidiary bays facing Silver Street are rendered in plain brick.

At ground-floor level, the five principal bays contain large windows divided by panelled pilasters, with a fascia in similar style; these are not original. The three-light, double-leaf pedimented doors have narrow margin lights and a rectangular fanlight with replaced glass, but retain a pair of Egyptian style brass drop handles.

The upper two storeys are faced entirely in terracotta. The second storey bays are divided by square pilasters with moulded acanthus leaf capitals and egg-and-dart enriched cornices. These support an entablature with a plain frieze and block modillion cornice that breaks forward in line with the pilasters. The bays are lit by large four-light segmental headed showroom windows with mullions and small square glazing bars to the upper lights.

The third storey is more elaborate, with bay divisions formed by pedestals with moulded caps and cartouches upon which winged terms stand to support the entablature with its egg-and-dart enriched cornice. Each bay has a low parapet of pierced segmental arches with prominent voussoirs, lit by three two-over-two-pane sash windows divided by round attached columns with simplified composite capitals and flanking consoles.

The steeply pitched, part conical roof has deep eaves and is lit by five tripartite lunette dormers with a dentilled architrave and moulded mullions. At the east end, an octagonal open-sided cupola with Tuscan columns supports an architrave with modillions and a bell-shaped copper roof with a ball finial rising into a spike. At the west end, where the roof joins the adjacent building, a brick parapet capped in terracotta and a wide chimney stack with dentilled cornice flanked by consoles.

In contrast, the two south-facing brick bays are plain. Paired twentieth-century doorways in the left bay lead to the basement and back stairs, lit by four four-light casement windows under segmental brick arches, as are all windows in these two bays. A narrow two-light stained glass window with decorative leaded lights occupies the second floor of the left bay. The right-hand bay is lit by four-light casements.

The ground floor is an open plan space. The ceiling is divided into a geometric pattern by moulded and dentilled timber beams, some painted white. Where the beams meet, two circular columns with bell capitals embellished by acanthus leaves provide support. The two upper floors are similar in arrangement, though the beams and capitals become increasingly plainer. A number of late nineteenth-century doors remain throughout, but otherwise the shop fittings are modern.