Registry Office And Attached Area Wall And Railings

The building is a former Poor Law offices, now a Registry Office, constructed between 1886 and 1887, designed by AH Goodall and built by Kent & Johnson. It was converted in the mid-20th century and altered in the late 20th century. The architecture is Italian Gothic Revival style. The construction is primarily red brick with ashlar dressings and pink granite columns, topped with Westmorland slate roofs featuring gables and hips.

The building has a plinth, a first-floor sill band, and a main cornice. The windows are plain sashes, round and segment-headed, framed by shafts on the main fronts. It comprises two storeys plus a basement and attics, and features 2 x 7 windows. Built on a corner site, the main and return fronts are linked by a towered corner feature. The corner tower has three stages, an ornamented cornice and parapet, and an octagonal spire roof. It contains five arcaded windows on each floor, with the ground floor windows segment-headed. The Shakespeare Street front has two closely set projecting bays with through-eaves dormers under coped gables. The entrance bay, to the right, has a stone doorcase with a round-arched opening and cornice, with a late 20th-century canopy above, and a single window above the door. The left bay displays paired windows, the ground floor being segment-arched. The right return front, facing Shakespeare Villas, features a gabled off-centre bay with a large four-window oriel on the first floor, supported by brackets and incorporating a balcony. Below the oriel is a single window, and above, a paired window. To the left of the bay are two narrow bays with irregular fenestration, and to the right, a smaller four-window range with a machicolated cornice. The second window of this range was converted into a doorway in the mid-20th century. At the rear is a square chimney designed as a campanile.

The exterior includes a coped area wall topped with the original wrought-iron railing along the corner and right return. Internally, the entrance hall features granite pilasters, and there is an open-well cantilever stone stair with a wrought-iron balustrade and wooden handrail. The landing and main first-floor rooms have cornices and pedimented doorcases.