Young Womens Christian Association Alexander House And Attached Railings

This is a former house of retreat, originally for the Sisters of Bethany (a convent and school), built between 1882 and 1884. It was designed by Ernest Newton, with later alterations. The building is constructed of yellow brick in a Flemish bond, with red brick and gauged red rubbed brick dressings. It is four and five storeys high, with a half-basement.

The architecture is irregular and picturesque, in a 'Queen Anne' style, featuring gables, high chimneys with moulded tops, swept parapets, pilasters, blank arches, and segmentally headed windows with wide sash boxes, all characteristic of the 'Queen Anne' style. The roofs are slate, with some within a curbed mansard. Iron area railings are present towards Lloyd Square.

The Lloyd Baker Street elevation features three main storeys in the centre, with steps leading up to a round-arched entrance. The entrance has double doors, partly panelled and partly glazed, set within an outer arch with a hood mould and keystones. Above this, two tall stacks rise from corbels at first-floor level, break through the cornice and are linked by an open arch. The flanks rise to two small segment-headed gables (altered from their original form) and a swept parapet, with a further high chimney on the left. A small addition, dating from circa 1905, is located at the far right end of the front. This addition is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, leaded windows, and a straight gable with a stone finial, in a Tudor style.

The longer Lloyd Square front (the eastern part built in 1882, the western part in 1884) has three main storeys above ground, with shaped gables and one chimney breaking through the line of the swept parapet. The tops of the gables were altered after World War II damage. A moulded stringcourse runs along the eastern portion above first-floor level. In the western portion, which has a simple arched entrance, the first-floor windows have projecting segmental heads. One ground-floor window is set within a broad segmental arch with a hood mould and keystone.

The interior retains a single-storey, flat-roofed cloister, with a corridor extending along its north and west sides. The corridor features buttressed brick piers alternating with segment-headed arches, largely filled with three-light wooden windows. A panelled Gothic door leads to the former chapel, located in the north-west position. Original rear brick elevations remain largely intact. A neo-Georgian brick extension, dating from circa 1935, is located on the upper storeys north of the cloister.