25 Palace Avenue

25 Palace Avenue is a post office, built in 1888 by G.S. Bridgman, who also designed Palace Avenue itself. It is now used as shops, offices, and a music school. The building is constructed of snecked local red breccia, with some facing in Bathstone ashlar, red Devon sandstone, Ham Hill and grey polished granite dressings, and has a hipped slate roof with crested ridge tiles. Stacks have red brick shafts with bracketed cornices and shaped flue dividers.

The building occupies a corner site between Palace Avenue and Coverdale Road, with a rounded corner. It follows a double-depth plan, with a single-storey post office block facing Palace Avenue and a three-storey office block behind. The exterior is in a Free Baroque style. The front has two bays and a single-storey projection divided into four bays by granite Corinthian pilasters, supporting a dentil frieze below a cornice and balustraded parapet. Each bay features round-headed, pilastered windows with a moulded arch, carved keyblock, recessed apron, and carved roundel, with high-transomed fixed glazing. A canted entrance bay to the right has corner pilasters and a pediment with a shield with mantling.

The three-storey block behind has cream stone quoins, and the second floor is faced with cream stone ashlar, featuring a foliated guilloche frieze below a dentil cornice. A moulded string is positioned at the second-floor sill level, with a stone band below decorated with a Greek key frieze. There are two first-floor canted bay windows with shouldered stone architraves, a fine dentil frieze below the cornice, and balustraded parpapets. The second floor has three windows with 2-pane sashes. The three-bay right return includes one bay of the single-storey projection, matching the others. The main block features rusticated pilasters to the ground floor and rusticated quoins to the first. There are moulded cornices at both first and second-floor levels, the second-floor cornice sitting above a Greek key frieze. The ground floor has a 2-pane sash within a moulded frame, flanked by pilasters with a cornice and sill blocks, topped by a pediment. A 2-light casement to the right has a moulded stone architrave, sill blocks and cornice. A tripartite window to the right has a pilastered architrave. First-floor windows are 2-pane sashes with moulded architraves and segmental-headed pediments on consoles. Second-floor windows alternate 2-pane sashes with fielded stone panels. The rear elevation is also richly detailed, with a 20th-century brick stair addition to the right.

The post office section retains plaster cornices, although it has been altered by partitions. Other features of interest may remain. Overall, the building makes a prominent and architecturally rich contribution to Palace Avenue.