2-4 Leicester Road

House with shop units, C19 with later alterations.

MATERIALS: constructed from red brick laid in Flemish bond with limestone dressings. The roof is Swithland slate and has brick stacks.

PLAN: the building stands on the west side of Leicester Road. Its principal elevation faces east, and the main range occupies a roughly rectangular footprint, with outshuts and workshops to the rear (west).

EXTERIOR: a four-bay, two-storey building. On the ground floor are two shop fronts separated by a central carriageway opening. The carriageway has a pair of timber plank doors within a segmental archway with alternating dressed stone and gauged brick voussoirs, and a wrought iron screen bearing the text ‘THOMAS BROWN / BUILDER’. A doorway to the left, similarly detailed, has a half-glazed door with fielded panelling and a leaded overlight, and gives access to the shop.

The shopfront is a timber structure framed by pilasters with paired consoles supporting a moulded cornice, with a fascia painted to read: FRUITERER W H COX EST 1888. The glazed front has three large lights separated by timber mullions, with a transom shaped to form a Tudor-arched head to each light. Above each large light, mullions form three smaller lights with leaded glass with a central roundel. There is a low stall riser and a wrought iron railing.

The shopfront to the right of the carriageway has been modernised. The first floor has four window openings with moulded stone lintels. The two on the left retain paired sashes with arched heads. There are stone sill and impost bands, and a brick cornice with paired corbels. The roof is pitched and has a chimneystack at either end of the ridge.

INTERIOR: the single-cell shop unit of W H Cox was originally the parlour to dwelling, and was put into use as a shop in 1888. The room retains some original domestic features: the chimneybreast and moulded cornice, along with C19 and C20 shop fittings. There is a counter with fielded panels and pilasters with scroll consoles supporting a deep, timber countertop, and matchboarding to the dado. Shelving to the rear is said to date to the 1960s.

The shop unit on the right has modern fittings.