Criterion Hotel

The Criterion Hotel dates to around 1850, with a rear wing dating to the mid-18th century and incorporating early 19th-century alterations. The rear wing is the surviving part of an earlier house that existed before Commercial Road was developed. The front block is part of a terrace that includes numbers 7 and 9 Commercial Road. It is constructed of brick, painted on the front, with a slate roof and brick stacks.

The hotel comprises a double-depth front block and a wing to the rear left. The front block is three storeys and has a cellar, while the rear wing is two storeys with an attic. The front features a raised band at the first-floor sill level that connects with the sill band of the adjacent terrace houses; a cogged brick crowning cornice is also present. The ground floor to the right of centre has an entrance doorway with a plain rectangular fanlight and a three-panel door, alongside a tripartite window with a central sash and narrow side-light sashes. A second doorway, with a fanlight and four-panel door leading to a side passage, is located to the left of the entrance. Above each of the ground-floor windows on the upper floors are matching tripartite sashes. All door and window openings have slightly cambered arched heads with voussoirs painted black, with raised keystones in the ground and second-floor arches. A framed panel with the hotel’s name and a painted shield sits above the second-floor windows.

Inside the front block, the upper floors retain contemporary joinery. At the junction with the rear wing, there is an early 19th-century staircase with stick balusters and a ramped handrail. The rear wing contains a mid-18th-century staircase with a closed string, square newels, and turned balusters. A principal room on the ground floor of the wing has a mid-18th-century fielded panel dado, a moulded chair rail, full-height fielded panels above, and a moulded cornice. The west wall features a mid-19th-century canted bay window, and the north-east corner has an angled fireplace with a mid-19th-century chimney-piece made of polished slate, painted with fruit and flowers. On the first floor, 18th-century joinery is present, including fielded panel doors. In the attic, the principal rafters of the four-bay roof over the wing are partly exposed.