Former Bakers Arms Public House, 16 Emlyn Square

Former Bakers Arms Public House, 16 Emlyn Square

Shop with accommodation above, built in 1846 for the Great Western Railway Company.

The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with limestone dressings and slate roofs. It is a corner building roughly square on plan, with a canted corner at the junction of Emlyn Square and Bathampton Street. The main three-storey building is adjoined to the rear by a separate square-plan section formed by roofing over the former yard, and a small additional range running north-south.

The exterior is styled in Tudor Gothic, featuring projecting quoins and hood moulds to the window openings, and a gable to the pitched roof. The east elevation to Emlyn Square presents a wide single bay with a ground-floor shop window having a moulded stone surround under a moulded cornice, divided into two lights by a matching mullion and incorporating a fascia. Above this is a tripartite multi-paned sash window, and on the second floor a narrower two-light multi-paned casement. The wide gable has 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. The ground floor contains a domestic entrance doorway providing access to the stair serving the upper-floor accommodation; this door dates from the twentieth century and is half-glazed. The first floor has a narrow casement window. The canted bay at the corner houses half-glazed double entrance doors to the former shop unit, dating from the twentieth century, with a rectangular overlight and fascia above. Set directly above the door is a ceramic plaque for Arkells brewery, depicting a ship and dated 1843, marking the brewery's foundation. The first floor of this bay is blind, with a narrow casement to the second floor.

The Bathampton Street elevation is divided into two sections. To the right is a single bay with a similar shop window to that on the Emlyn Square elevation and narrow casement windows to the ground and first floors. To the left is a matching two-bay section set back very slightly but otherwise similar to the rest of the main building, comprising a narrow bay to the right and wider bay to the left, each with windows on every floor. A doorway at the far left is a later twentieth-century insertion, with the hood mould to the adjacent window modified and continued over it. The wall terminates in a parapet, behind which the roof ends in a hip over the canted bay.

Inside, the ground floor retains its original plan in part. The former shop unit has an internal canted storm porch formed from matchboarding, and a later twentieth-century continuous bench seat runs under the east window. The fireplace remains in situ with a plain timber fire surround and mantel carried on brackets. The former kitchen has been partially opened into the main shop space. Passages to ancillary spaces to the rear are panelled in matchboarding to dado height. The former courtyard to the north has been roofed over. The shop extends into one ground-floor bay of the adjacent cottage, accessed by a short flight of steps down from the shop. This space has been opened up from two small rooms, with a wall stub remaining, and retains two fireplaces with timber surrounds similar to that in the shop unit. The upper floors remain in use as accommodation.