14 Emlyn Square, formerly The Cricketers Public House

14 Emlyn Square, formerly The Cricketers Public House

A public house with accommodation above, built in 1846 for the Great Western Railway Company. The building incorporates an adjacent contemporary railway workers' cottage, creating a substantial corner structure.

The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with limestone dressings and slate roofs. It occupies a corner site at the junction of Emlyn Square and Exeter Street, with a canted corner bay at this junction. The building is principally of three storeys and displays Tudor Gothic styling, with projecting quoins and hood moulds to window openings and gables to pitched roofs. Various extensions and outbuildings are set into the rear re-entrant corner.

The east elevation to Emlyn Square presents a wide single bay at ground floor with a shop window of moulded stone surround beneath a moulded cornice, divided into two lights by a matching mullion and featuring arcaded columnar glazing. Above this are paired two-over-two sash windows, and to the second floor a narrower two-light multi-paned casement. The wide gable contains a blind oval keyed oculus in the apex. To the right is a lower two-storey section of one narrow bay with a parapet roof, containing a domestic entrance doorway at ground floor giving access to upper-floor accommodation. This doorway is a 20th-century four-panelled door with a first-floor one-over-one sash window above. The incorporated cottage forms two storeys with three two-over-two sash windows under hood moulds to the ground floor, the central window converted from a doorway. The outer bays have two-light casement windows to the first floor. The canted bay houses early 20th-century multi-panelled double entrance doors to the bar with shaped overlight and timber sign for the PUBLIC BAR. A ceramic plaque for Ushers brewery is set into the wall to the right of this door. The first floor of this bay is blind with a narrow casement window to the second floor and a gable above.

The Exeter Street elevation divides into two sections. To the right is a single bay with a similar ground-floor window to the Emlyn Square elevation and a two-over-two sash window to the first floor. The second floor has a two-light multi-paned casement and a gable with a blind oval keyed oculus. To the left is a matching two-bay section set back only very slightly. This contains a narrow bay to the right and wider bay to the left, each with windows on all three floors. First-floor windows are four-over-four sashes, and the second floor has multi-paned casements. The outermost bay has a gable with a keyed oculus matching those elsewhere.

Internally, the former public bar is a single room with a matchboarded storm porch set within the canted entrance bay, which has a moulded cornice. The inner door is multi-paned glazing dating from later in the 20th century. A moulded chair rail runs around the room. The fireplace survives with a later 20th-century brick fire surround, though bar fittings all date from the late 20th century. North of this room is the stair hall containing a straight stair with turned newel and balusters. The former cottage rooms to the north have been opened up into a single space, with wall stub remaining. The north end has a chimney breast flanked by arched niches. A new doorway to the western wall leads into a space created by roofing over the former yard. The original opening from the bar to ancillary rear spaces has a chamfered and stopped doorway. The rear stair rises from the inner hall at the building's centre, beyond which a quarry-tiled corridor accesses stores. The room to the north has a window, now internal, marking the original building extent. An outbuilding at the corridor's far end might have housed stabling. The premises extends into one ground-floor bay of the adjacent cottage on Exeter Street, to the rear of the bar, retaining its high timber fire surround with mantel carried on moulded brackets, the opening partly infilled. Historic doors throughout are generally four-panelled. Most fire surrounds have been removed and fireplaces closed. The room above the public bar was probably intended as a function room, latterly reordered with a later wall creating two separate rooms, though a former arched opening halfway along survives within the eastern room. Rooms in the former cottage retain chair rail and picture rail. That to the north has a small inter-war tile fire surround. Rear rooms within later extensions have been further modified. Two second-floor rooms retain plain timber fire surrounds. Some minor subdivision has occurred in this area.