Former Market Hotel

Former Market Hotel

A hotel and warehouse built in 1883 by the architects Thomson Plevins of Plevins and Norrington, commissioned by H E Jordan, a pram maker.

The building is constructed of brick with sandstone and terracotta dressings and panels, beneath a slate roof. It stands at the north-eastern end of Station Street and is largely rectangular in plan.

The building rises four storeys plus an attic storey set back behind a parapet, featuring dormer windows facing front, side and rear. The elevations are of brick with sandstone dressings and regularly spaced sandstone bands dividing the brickwork. Decorative terracotta panels fill the spaces between the windows of the first and second floors, and again above the fourth floor windows. The building is lit throughout mostly by timber sash windows.

The Station Street elevation comprises three large bays. The right section, of three windows, formerly served as the warehouse. Its entrance—now the principal hotel entrance—sits within a large arched stone surround adjacent to a similarly arched window. The first and second floors project forward with curved ends to this bay. The central terracotta panel displays the initials 'HEJ'. The central portion features a stone ground floor serving the hotel bar entrance, with a two-storey canted bay window rising through the first and second floors, demarcated by tall chimneys rising above. The left section has two windows with a similarly curved first and second floor projection, before an angled corner containing the original hotel entrance. This entrance has its door set in an arched recess with granite columns supporting carved brackets which in turn support a cornice and a projecting square bay rising above. The word 'HOTEL' appears above the door, with a small pediment above the second floor window.

The Dudley Street elevation has a central portion of three windows flanked by pilasters rising through the first and second floors, with further windows to either side. The outer bays feature curved projections between ground and first floor, and small balconies between first and second floor with stone balusters supported on corbels. The pilasters carry carved decoration with the date '18' on the left and '83' on the right, topped by small swan neck pediments. At entablature level are the initials 'HEJ' to the left and 'TP' to the right.

The interior of the former warehouse portion has been converted for hotel use and contains an early twentieth-century stair with timber bannister and moulded newel posts. A small area of timber panelling survives between ground and first floor, with a decorative leaded window. A basement room retains some moulded cornicing.

The ground floor of the original hotel part has moulded cornicing to the bar area and cast iron columns with decorative capitals. The original hotel stair survives from first floor upwards, featuring thick turned balusters and newel posts with a skylight at the top level containing some surviving stained glass. Hotel rooms have been modernised with suspended ceilings.