Gloucester Services Club

The Gloucester Services Club is a block of two shops and former dwellings located at 52 and 54 Westgate Street, dating from around 1870 with 20th-century alterations. The rear part of No. 52 now serves as a club, while the upper floors of No. 54 are part of the Lamprey Hotel at 56 Westgate Street. The building features an ashlar facing on brick, a cast-iron shop front, and a slate roof, arranged in a double-depth block.

The exterior consists of three storeys and cellars, presenting a unified facade in an Italianate style. On the ground floor, there are two shop fronts framed by rusticated strip pilasters topped with carved brackets that support blocks at the ends of the fascias above. Each block features a finely sculpted head in relief within a roundel. The fascias are capped by string courses between the blocks. No. 52, on the right, has an original cast-iron arcaded shop window with a central recessed entry to the doorway, moulded shafts with moulded capitals and bases attached to slender piers, and arches with roundels in the spandrels. No. 54, on the left, has a mid-20th-century shop window.

At the first-floor level, there is a moulded cornice on consoles, and a similar crowning cornice on pairs of brackets with a panelled parapet above. Each unit on the first floor has two plain, horned sashes in openings framed with moulded architraves on each side and a plain segmental-arched head, with a floating cornice supported on heavy console end-brackets and a projecting sill on small end-brackets. On the second floor, each unit features two similar sashes in openings with segmental arched heads, moulded architraves, and carved key stones in the arches. The building is of principal interest for its prominent Italianate facade, characteristic of mid-19th-century commercial architecture, and is distinguished by the well-preserved shop front of No. 52.