51 Queen Street

51 Queen Street is a former wine merchants premises dating from around 1898, designed by W J Jennings of Canterbury in Victorian Tudor style.

The building is constructed of carved and random-rubble elevations with granite detailing. The roof is hidden behind a parapet. The structure comprises two storeys with a cellar and tower. The main entrance is positioned beneath the tower on a canted corner at the junction of Queen Street and Effingham Street.

Both street elevations feature two bays arranged in broad symmetry, with stone window surrounds delineated by random-rubble panels. The ground floor shop windows have pointed arches with stone spandrels decorated with grapes and framed by a stone drip mould. Each window has a large lower pane with gothic Y-type tracery in the upper sections. On the Effingham Street elevation, one ground floor opening contains a pair of panelled and half-glazed doors. A six-panelled timber door stands at the north end, fitted with Gothic-style door furniture, above which is a stone shield inscribed with the entwined letters 'J&C' and the date '1778-1898'. At first floor level, stone window surrounds with mullions and a transom form six-light sash windows. A stone plinth runs at street level, with a moulded fascia above the ground floor and a continuous drip mould above the first floor fenestration. The projecting ashlar parapet is supported by a corbel table.

The main canted corner entrance at ground floor level has a square-headed drip mould terminated by dog heads, above a Tudor-style surround with carved foliage to the stone spandrels. Slender granite columns flanking the doorway stand on a carved granite base. The paired timber entrance doors are half-glazed with an arched head. Above the canted entrance, stepped moulding resolves to a curved corner with two single-light windows at first floor level. The tower features a single-light window and a corbel table beneath a castellated rim. On its western side, a stone bracket supported by a hunched medieval figure projects from the wall, supporting a large circular clock fixed horizontally and projecting over the street.

Internally, the main entrance opens into an open-plan ground floor with a central cast-iron spiral staircase serving both floors and the basement. The basement has a barrel-shaped timber surround which may originally have extended to the ground floor. The staircase treads and brackets are decorated with scrollwork, and the balustrade with a tulip motif. Either side of the stairs on the ground floor stand cast-iron Doric-type columns, the example to the left being a 20th century replacement. The ground floor window frames have slender column-like mouldings to either side. The first floor rooms are fairly plain, although one room retains its decorative cornice.

The basement contains a number of brick-built stores with metal doors and cages. The walls are covered with gloss beige-coloured tiles, and the brick ceiling is vaulted and supported on iron H-beams. The chute descending from the pedestrian door in Effingham Street is blocked-up. A brick stair rises under the Queen Street elevation, but access to the street pavement has also been blocked.