Victorian Arcade (Including Nos. 59, 61 And 66 Lower Hall Lane, 39 And 40, Digbeth Street And 2 To 9 Bradford Street And Those Premises At First And Second Floor Level Above These)

Victorian Arcade is a shopping arcade with office chambers and assembly room designed by the architect Jonathon Ellis and built between 1895 and 1897. It stands at the centre of Walsall on the site of the former market shambles, bordered on three sides by roads from each of which an entrance is provided.

The building is constructed of red brick with painted stone dressings to the street fronts. The shop fronts have plate glass windows with timber mullions and transoms divided by painted stone piers. Wrought iron balustrades run along the first floor level on Bradford Street, and timber oriel windows stand above these.

The arcades at the centre of the block are roughly T-shaped in plan. At the hub is an octagonal space topped with a glazed dome. A long two-storey aisle extends north-east from the octagon to an entrance on Digbeth Street. A further two-storey aisle extends north-west to an entrance on Bradford Street. A third single-storey aisle is entered from Lower Hall Lane.

The Bradford Street frontage is divided into five principal bays with additional half-bays at each end housing staircases that give access to the first floor balconies and second floor offices. Projecting pilasters divide each wide bay and continue as panelled piers to first floor level, then revert to pilasters and die out at second-floor level just below the eaves. At ground floor level each wide bay is divided into two shop fronts separated by a slender panelled pilaster. Each shop front has a stall riser with stall board, plate glass windows either side of glazed doors, and a series of transom lights below the fascia topped by a dentilled cornice. At first floor balcony level the shop fronts are set back and cast iron panels of stylised foliage form the balustrade. Cast iron columns with Corinthian capitals divide each bay and support cast ironwork spandrel panels. At second floor level are a series of four projecting oriel windows, each supported by five pairs of brackets and each containing four lights with lower panes of plate glass and upper sash lights of nine panes. Above the entrance to the arcade is a window of three lights with basket-arched head flanked by pairs of fluted and panelled pilasters. Above this is a shaped gable with panels of moulded bricks, which has lost the miniature pediment that formerly crowned it.

The Digbeth Street facade comprises Nos. 39 and 40 with an archway between them. The shop fronts here have 20th-century plate glass windows flanked by piers clad in 20th-century mosaic. At first floor level the original decoration survives with a round-headed arch at centre, its spandrels containing panels of deeply-cut foliage with profile heads. At either side are paired windows with aedicular surrounds. Old photographs show that there was formerly an oriel and shaped gable above the archway at second floor level, but these have been removed and replaced with a 20th-century second floor of brown brick with metal windows.

The Lower Hall Lane frontage has a three-storey portion to the left with cambered-heads to the first and second floor windows. To the right is a two-storey portion with a Mansard roof containing a series of large roof lights, appearing to be a 20th-century alteration. The windows to this right-hand portion have moulded and painted surrounds.

Internally, the arcade has three arms forming an approximate T-shape. At the hub is an octagonal space carrying a glazed dome with coved sides and a flat boarded ceiling at its centre. To its south-east side is a generous segmental bow-window with stained glass inserts and pulvinated frieze, which lights the former assembly room. The arms entered from Digbeth Street and Bradford Street are both of two storeys and divided into bays by panelled pilasters extending to both floors and connecting to the cast iron roof trusses supporting the barrel-vaulted glass roof. At ground floor level the shop fronts are occasionally grouped in pairs so that the doors to two shops lead from a single lobby. In these cases the ground floor pilaster is replaced by a large moulded bracket projecting to support the first floor pilaster. The shop fronts have stall risers, moulded stall boards and plate glass windows with transom lights and fascias topped by a continuous cornice. At first floor level the paired office windows have painted moulded surrounds that are slightly shouldered, below which are aprons with shaped lower edges. Three of the shop fronts in the north-east arcade do not conform to this type and appear to have been remodelled in the 1960s. The arm extending south-east to connect with Lower Hall Lane is single-storey with a flat unglazed ceiling. The shop fronts here conform to the pattern seen elsewhere.

The arcade stands on the site of the medieval shambles, which had become a meat market and timber yard. It was redeveloped in 1895-7 by architect Jonathon Ellis as a shopping arcade with chambers and assembly room for Edward Thomas Holden, who also built a Temperance Hotel on the opposite side of Digbeth Street at the same time. The building was restored approximately ten years ago with repair of the glazed barrel-vaulted roof and some of the shop fronts. The building was formerly known as Digbeth Arcade but has recently been renamed Victorian Arcade.

The designation includes all premises at first and second floor level above Nos. 59, 61 and 66 Lower Hall Lane, 39 and 40 Digbeth Street and 2 to 9 Bradford Street, but excludes the premises at second floor level above Nos. 39 and 40 Digbeth Street and above the entrance archway between them.