323 High Street

This is a hotel built in the early 19th century, later converted into a shop and altered in the 20th century. The building stands on the east side of High Street, facing west.

The main part of the building, facing the High Street, is a three-story structure with a basement, spanning four bays, the southernmost bay slightly wider. The western elevation is faced with stucco and features Italianate detailing, with channelled rustication on the ground floor. A wide, glazed shopfront occupies the three northern bays of the ground floor, set within moulded surrounds and resting on a black-painted stone or stucco plinth. The southernmost bay features a segmental-arched doorway. There are two barred basement windows below the shopfront. A moulded band with floral motifs, intersected by brackets supporting a cill band for the first-floor windows, runs above the shopfront.

The first and second floors each have four windows, all being two-pane timber sash windows within moulded architraves. The first-floor window surrounds are more elaborate, incorporating bracketed cornices. Moulded aprons, each with a central floral boss, are set between the first- and second-floor windows. A bracketed cornice with similar floral bosses runs above the second-floor windows. Above the cornice is a stucco parapet bearing the raised lettering “QUEEN HOTEL”, which hides the pitched roof sloping towards the High Street.

A larger, two-to three-story range extends to the rear, largely rebuilt in the late 20th century using red brick and featuring a part-pitched, part-flat roof. The north flank of this rear range retains a section of original 19th-century brickwork where it joins the front range. The east and south elevations, along with the eastern end of the north elevation, are blank at ground and first floor levels, except for a range of windows at the south-floor level and a single, late-20th century window on the east elevation. The building is constructed of brick with a stuccoed principal elevation and a plain-tile roof.