Gresham Chambers

Gresham Chambers is a three-storey building dating to 1868, designed by Ponton and Gough in the Venetian Gothic Revival style. The building is constructed of random limestone ashlar with red sandstone bands, with a brick party wall stack. It has a double-depth plan. The symmetrical front features a shop front with outer doorways and a wide plate-glass window, set between square piers and responds with crocket capitals. Raised blocks above the shop front have carved tops and gablets with lintels bearing nail-head mouldings. Round panels in these blocks contain painted carved heads. Bands of red sandstone feature on the upper floors, with impost bands incorporating running incised decoration. Short paired columns, corbelled and with crocket capitals and gableted tops bearing shields and an MD monogram, flank the second-floor bracketed cornice. The three-window arcades have banded columns to crocket capitals to stilted two-centre arches, taller on the first floor, with moulded arrises, labels, and shouldered lintels within the arches, featuring moulded spandrels. The interior was largely remodelled in the mid-20th century. Gresham Chambers is one of a group of similar commercial buildings designed by Ponton and Gough, including St Nicholas Chambers.