56-65, GEORGE STREET

This is a terrace of ten ground floor shops with accommodation above, built in the early 19th century. The buildings are located on George Street and retain a handsome, largely unaltered facade. The front of the terrace is stuccoed over brick, while the rear has bare brick in random bond. The roof is shallow-pitched and slate.

The symmetrical facade is arranged in twelve bays following an ABCBADDABCBA pattern. The ground floor features shop fronts with a continuous fascia panel, late 19th or early 20th century in origin, with transom lights above plate glass windows and doorways set to alternate sides. All shop doors have been renewed. First floor windows are six-over-six sash windows with horns, and the second floor has three-over-three sash windows, also with horns; the older windows have a central wooden mullion. Architectural details include projecting and recessed bays, and on either side of the centre are clusters of three bays with an arched, flat-backed niche above a sunken rectangular panel. The stucco is scribed to imitate ashlar blocks. A central passageway provides access to the rear of the terrace. At the rear, many premises have projecting single-storey ranges, shared by two premises, with cambered heads to the openings, potentially used as workshops.

Inside, each shop has an open ground floor area with a staircase to one side and a chimney stack opposite. The upper floors each contain two rooms per level. Numbers 56 and 64 have been combined to form a single shop at ground floor level, although a chimney stack remains. Most fireplaces have been removed, but two metal grates survive on the first floor.