4-16, TORBAY ROAD (See details for further address information)

A row of seven shops with accommodation above, built around 1890-1900, located on Torbay Road, Paignton, and extending to include numbers 1-5 Queens Park Road. The building is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, with dressings in Ham Hill stone, pink polished granite columns, and a mansard roof covered with terracotta pantiles. Brick stacks have Ham Hill cornices.

The architecture is in a Free Baroque style, with three storeys and an attic, extending across ten bays, divided into pairs. The building features richly detailed decoration, including deep eaves supported by moulded terracotta brackets, a decorated terracotta eaves band, and clasping left and right pilasters. A cornice is present at the first-floor level. The ground-floor bays are divided by paired composite granite columns. Later 20th-century plate glass shopfronts occupy the four leftmost shops. The central double-fronted shop retains an earlier shopfront, possibly original, featuring an overlight glazed as a triple fanlight with spoke glazing bars. The shop to its right has diagonal glazing bars above its overlight. A secondary deep glazed canopy is carried on cast-iron columns over the shopfronts. Two-tier canted bay windows are located above the shops, with dentil friezes below their cornices, and the upper tiers have shaped parapets. The first-floor bay windows have fixed-pane outer lights with high transoms containing intact Art Nouveau stained glass above. Upper-sash windows typically have 15 panes, though bays three and four from the left feature Art Nouveau glass. Between the bays are cast-iron balustrades and bullseye windows set within brick voussoirs and moulded stone frames. Second-floor bay windows have 15 over one-pane sashes, with terracotta panels between them. Tall, gabled attic dormers have Baroque brackets, pilasters with finials, and round-headed windows with keyblocks glazed with two-pane sashes. The rear elevation is similarly elaborate, featuring stone-coped stepped brick walls with balustraded parapets, five projecting wings with two-tier cast-iron balconies supported by columns with decorated spandrels, and original windows. The interiors remain uninspected but are likely to contain features of interest. A photograph from 1988 shows the shops without the canopy. The rear elevations, overlooking a bowling green, are also attractive and well-preserved.