Kings Parade

A row of shops built in 1903 by A.H. Sykes, located on High Street. The building is constructed of red brick with terracotta bay windows, rough-cast gables, and a gabled roof covered in plain tile and concrete tile. Brick stacks are also present. Designed in the Art Nouveau style, the building is three storeys high with an attic, and comprises a 14-bay range with each bay stepped down from the right. Later 20th-century shop fronts are set within the original architraves, which feature brackets supporting moulded wood cornices. Five rough-cast gables are located centrally and on the sides, alternating with brick bays. Each brick bay has a bowed terracotta oriel window with leaded lights to mullioned and transomed windows. A central frieze is decorated with festoons, and a dentilled cornice and decorative wrought-iron balustrade fronts a semi-circular arched dormer window with glazing bars. Two brick bays have domed polygonal dormers with lozenge-shaped lights, flanked by flat-roofed dormers. The rough-cast gables each have a first-floor "Ipswich window" flanked by decorative plaster panels framed by Ionic piers. They also contain three second-floor plate-glass sashes and a five-light third-floor window with glazing bars, with tile hanging to the gable. The central gable, which has a central stack, features semi-circular arched hoodmoulds over the second-floor windows and a third-floor sash flanked by round windows. An Ipswich window is positioned centrally on the first floor of the central gable, with similar windows also to the first floor of the flanking bays. The interior was not inspected. The building has group value as an unusual example of Art Nouveau architecture.