14, 14A AND 16, ST JAMES' STREET

This building comprises a music hall, now a cafe, and adjoining shops, constructed in 1877 in Nottingham. It was designed by Edwin Hill of Nottingham for Charles Weldon and restored between 1982 and 1984, subsequently converted to a cafe in 1987. The building is primarily brick with roughcast and stucco dressings, featuring a glazed barrel vault over the music hall and slate roofs elsewhere. It incorporates a moulded string course and eaves. The structure is two storeys high plus attics, with a galleried basement and a rock-cut cellar.

The front range has a four-window facade with square wooden oriels, each featuring tripartite sashes and cornices. Above the oriels are four round-arched, through-eaves dormers, finished with finials and plain sashes. The shops are fronted by a full-width wooden shopfront, incorporating a moulded cornice and cast-iron columns with foliage capitals. The ground floor has wooden shopfronts, including a central double door and round-arched windows with two and three lights, using wooden mullions and transoms. To the left is a wide opening containing a circa 1935 bow-fronted doorcase with a crest.

The interior of the music hall retains many original features. The laminated wood barrel vault is glazed and includes tie rods, with plaster centre panels. A central light well extends through all floors, although it is now boarded over at ground floor level. A three-sided gallery is supported by a cast-iron balustrade resting on cast-iron columns with elaborate foliage capitals. A cantilevered dogleg stair also features a cast-iron balustrade. The interior includes replica panelling, a bar, stage, canopy, and rostrum. The building represents a largely intact example of a galleried music hall, notable for incorporating one of the earliest examples of a laminated timber roof—preceding similar examples at King's Cross Station (1851-52) and St Matthias' Church, Nottingham (1868).