8 High Street

This shop house was built in 1904 to designs by William Roland Howell of Coopers and Howell. The street-facing elevation is constructed of faience tiles, with a timber and coursed rubble stone shopfront. The rear elevations are of red brick.

The building is three storeys high, with an attic and basement, and consists of two main sections: a principal range facing High Street to the west, and a rear range extending eastwards within the urban block.

The front, west elevation is designed in a rich Art Nouveau style, presenting a wide, single-bay frontage onto High Street. The ground floor is now largely occupied by a later 20th-century glazed shopfront with half-glazed double doors to the north. Above the entryway at the northern end of the façade is a black overlight reading ‘BANK CHAMBERS / No. 8a’ in gilt letters. Black faience tiles flank the shopfront, extending upwards to enclose a large, fan-shaped window at first-floor level, surrounded by voussoirs with curvilinear, Art Nouveau-style motifs. The upper half of the first storey is clad in green faience tiles. The second storey is divided by three trapezoid hanging buttresses connected to the first storey by decorative, foliate corbels, each stamped with a relief cartouche. Two bays of tripartite, segmental-headed sash windows are positioned between these buttresses and each has a curved modillion cornice. A heavy modillion cornice with flanking, foliate turrets tops the building. The west roof slope features a large dormer with a tripartite mullioned casement window and a heavy modillion cornice. The rear range has an irregular gable roof, with eaves oriented north/south. The north, east and south elevations are red brick. The north elevation fronts onto a shared service alley with 1-2 Market Place. The east elevation includes two small ancillary extensions and an irregular layout of four casement windows.