10-16 Market Place

Terrace of seven late-C18 shops with accommodation above and rear ranges, altered C19, C20 and C21.

MATERIALS: fair-faced brown bricks and pitched slate-clad roofs.

PLAN: terrace of seven rectangular plan shops, with long rear ranges.

EXTERIOR: a terrace of seven, three-storey, two-bay shops with the front elevations facing north onto the Market Place, between James Street and New Lane. Number 10 is taller, and its floor levels are higher than the remainder of the terrace. The ground floor of each building is occupied by a shopfront; number 11 has a mid- to late-C19 shop window with low glazed brick stalls, arcaded glazing bars to the clerestory, a cornice with guttae and modillions, and a panelled door to the right with a blind rectangular fanlight. The recessed central window is a former door position. Numbers 12 and 13 have modern opposed canted shopfronts flanking a pedestrian passageway with a plain concrete pillar supporting concrete facias with impressed lettering that reads: ‘MARKET CROSS’ and ‘SHOPPING CENTRE’. The remaining shopfronts are all modern with pilasters, cornices, and console brackets in different styles; number 16 has more elaborate late-C19 style console brackets with hood mouldings and number 14 retains its original moulded cornice. Numbers 11, 14 and 15 have front doors off-set to the right-hand side. The first-floor front elevations have a mixture of two-light horned sash windows and a mixture of 12-light horned and plain sash windows; all with painted flat lintels, and the sills resting on a continuous sill band. The second floor has a similar mix of windows of shorter proportions. Number 10 has a gabled roof with a timber modillion eaves cornice and rainwater gutter. All of the other properties have a slate-clad, pitched-roof with brick chimney stacks, and gutters that are obscured by a brick parapet with flat ashlar copings, and are drained by four shared cast-iron rainwater down pipes. Number 16 has a raised roof verge, built against the gable of the neighbouring property. Numbers 13, 15, and 16 all have faded painted shop sign panels on the brick walls; none of which are legible.