Conway Buildings

Conway Buildings is a three-storey office building constructed in 1878 to the designs of Stockdale Harrison, situated within a terrace facing east onto Grey Friars. The building is constructed of red brick in English bond, with stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof. It has an approximately square plan, incorporating an internal courtyard lined with 20th-century extensions.

The building is designed in the Gothic Revival style. The main range, seven bays wide, has a steeply pitched roof with decorative corbelled stacks and pierced ridge tiles. The ground floor has a plank door with decorative iron straps, set within a moulded stone surround featuring a quatrefoil in the tympanum and covered by a brick arch with a stone hoodmould. To either side are paired timber sash windows with arched heads, set in stone surrounds incorporating a central mullion, a moulded tiled panel above, and a decorative moulded brick string course with acanthus leaves and lions’ faces. The first floor windows are largely lancet, with moulded stone surrounds, transoms, capitals, and a continuous string course. The upper pairs have moulded tile panels, and the central pair features a stone panel inscribed "CONWAY BUILDINGS." The second floor mirrors this arrangement, with timber sash windows having trefoil heads, continuous stone lintels/string courses, brick arches, tiled panels, and gables corbelled out from the first floor, flanked by crocketed stone pinnacles. Stone plaques are integrated into the panels, with the central plaque bearing the date 1878. A moulded brick cornice with acanthus decoration completes the façade.

The whitewashed courtyard fronts retain mainly wooden mullion and transom windows, along with elaborate sill bands and a dentil cornice. An ornamental wooden lucam remains, marking the site of a former hoist on the west range. The remaining three courtyard ranges have 20th-century extensions.

The interior has been remodelled, preserving limited original features. Surviving elements include some original joinery and dogleg stone staircases. These staircases feature an open string, shaped tread ends, a moulded handrail supported by cast and wrought iron balustrades with scrolled and acanthus leaf designs. Some six-panel doors remain, exhibiting moulded rails creating a Tudor square panelling effect. Unusual doorcases are characterised by cambered upper sections and chamfered jambs rising into shouldered arches with roundels.