36-40 Market Street

A corner building complex on Market Street and Belvoir Street comprising three distinct structures dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

40 Market Street, occupying the corner, is a four-storey building in a flamboyant Jacobethan style, constructed of ashlared stone with stone dressings and a pitched, tile-clad roof. It is dominated by a double-height bow window at the corner with a central Gothic canopied statue niche, surmounted by an oversailing triangular gable with bargeboards supported by sandstone columns. The entrance below features two heavy Gothic arches with large roll moulding in banded red and white stone, supported by a wide corner column in polished red marble on an octagonal base. The frieze above is partially pulvinated, giving the impression that the bow window comprises two oriels. The four-bay section on the left and three-bay section on the right feature mullioned and transomed windows of diamond section with mostly six lights on the first floor and four lights on the second floor, some containing small square leaded lights. A moulded string course runs at second-floor sill level, with three carved stone tablets between the windows bearing cusped arches and inscribed "GRESHAM BUILDINGS AD 1883" and the initials RA (for Richard Allen). Smaller gabled dormers with decorative bargeboards and drop finials flank the corner gable. On the right is a small three-light flat-roofed dormer within the roof space; on the left a continuous flat-roofed dormer containing small square leaded lights was added in 1925 to provide a hairdressing department. The shop fronts have plate glass windows mostly with slender pilasters and moulded capitals, dating to 1963, though an earlier fascia board and wide strip of square leaded lights may survive beneath the wide fascia board.

38 Market Street adjoins to the left and is a three-storey building with an attic, constructed of buff-coloured brick laid in Flemish bond with stone dressings. The two-bay elevation features pairs of two-over-two pane horned sash windows on the first and second floors, set in stone surrounds with central mullions and moulded lintels. A plain stone band runs at second-floor sill level, with a moulded stone eaves cornice above. The second floor is slightly recessed, creating panels between and at either side of the projecting windows which are pierced along the bottom with stylised lancet openings. The attic is lit by a row of flat-headed dormers continuing those on the Gresham Building.

36 Market Street, to the left, is in the Domestic Revival style, constructed of red brick laid in English bond with brick dressings. The four-storey, five-bay building features elaborate mullion and transom windows with moulded timber frames under segmental brick arches. The first floor has two-light mullion windows with wooden glazing bars, an arched centre-light, and a short two-light mullion above, the latter sections displaying highly decorative iron glazing bar patterns. The second floor has a slightly recessed central bay lit by a wide window under a segmental brick arch, flanked by cross windows, all with square leaded lights in the upper panes. A prominent moulded brick string course runs at sill level, projecting under the central window with a corbelled appearance. The third floor features a three-bay corbelled projection covered in roughcast render, almost as wide as the building, with a deep dentilled eaves cornice rising into a central pediment. The central five-light window has arched upper panes and is flanked by three-light windows.

The interior is partly open plan on the ground and first floors with modern finishes typical of a latter 20th-century department store, with very few original fixtures and fittings surviving. On the third floor, the corner room retains full-height panelling and glazed doors with metal glazing bars opening onto a balcony under the prominent corner gable, probably dating to the mid-1920s. Along the Market Street frontage, small partitioned rooms are panelled with large recessed moulded panels surmounted by a moulded cornice, probably created for the hairdressing department in 1925.