11 Castle Street

Former congregational chapel, built in 1837, designed by JJ Cooper, converted to retail use in around 1956, subsequently converted to use as a public house in the late 1990s.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of brick, with a stucco principal elevation. The roof covering appears to be slate.

PLAN: the building is laid out on a rectangular footprint orientated north-south.

EXTERIOR: the building is of two tall storeys across five bays facing onto Castle Street, under a pitched roof. The principal, north elevation is designed in a neoclassical style executed in stucco. At ground-floor level, the three central bays contain a recessed modern shopfront, with a pair of columns flanking the central entrance and two half-columns set against the sides of the recess. Above the shopfront is a partial Doric entablature with triglyphs and metopes. The two end bays are of channelled stucco and contain a large, round-arched opening containing modern fixed windows.

At first-floor level are five slightly recessed, round-arched openings, all containing fixed windows with applied glazing bars and a low-level casement element. The three central arches spring from simple moulded pilasters, and each has a raised panel beneath the window. The two outer bays are flanked by pairs of larger pilasters with Soanian incisions, and there is a recessed panel beneath the windows. The four larger pilasters rise to a simple cornice with a parapet above with a central pediment containing a circular window within the tympanum.

The east and west elevations each contain five tall, first-floor round-arched openings, each containing a fixed window with many glazing bars and a casement element, apart from the second bay from the south on the west elevation, which contains a doorway leading to an emergency staircase. There appears to be a corresponding range of round-arched openings at ground-floor level on either elevation, although these are largely hidden from the street.

There is a full-width, brick projection to the rear, south, elevation of two lower storeys, with a pair of modern doors at ground-floor level. Above this projection, on the rear elevation of the main body of the former chapel, is a large chimney stack rising through the roof ridge. On either side of the stack at high level are a pair of small, round-arched openings, now blocked.