Royal Clarence House

Royal Clarence House is a hotel, built around 1834 and later converted into a shopping centre in the 1980s. It was likely designed by Benjamin Baker. The building is constructed of painted Flemish-bond brick with a stone blocking course, a repaired wood cornice, cills, and a pantile roof with brick stacks at the centre and right of the ridge. It has an L-shaped plan and is 3 stories high with an attic, featuring a 17-window front along the High Street and York Buildings. Four 20th-century dormers are present on the front elevation.

The High Street facade is symmetrical, with a 6-window arrangement, and a curved bay with 2 windows at the right-hand corner. The remaining windows are on the return front in York Street. The main block includes 9 windows, with a cornice and blocking course. The second floor windows have 3/6-pane sashes, while the full-height first-floor sashes have 6/9 panes. Two windows on the right have higher cills, and the window furthest to the right is blind. A portico with paired Ionic columns is centrally positioned on the street front, supported by late 19th-century cast-iron railings above. A low-relief cast-iron plaque displaying the town arms, incorporating a castle on a bridge, a star, and a fleur-de-lys, appears at the portico’s centre. It is inscribed with "R.C.Mayor" to the left and "Esq" to the right, and was formerly located on the old cast-iron Town Bridge. The portico’s cornice molding extends across the main building as a string course.

Number 8, to the left and now incorporated into the hotel, features a separate stucco facade of a similar date, with painted stone cornices, a blocking course, pilasters, a cill band, and dressings. It is four stories high and has a symmetrical one-window range. Above the 20th-century shop front, a semicircular recess framed by a moulded archivolt and imposts contains a 6/3-pane sash window, which likely originally had 6/6 panes truncated by the shop fascia. A 3/6-pane sash window is located above, flanked by pilasters supporting a substantial cornice. The attic story features a 3/3-pane sash window, panelled pilasters, a cornice, and a blocking course.

The interior of the hotel retains original features, including 6-panel doors, moulded cornices, reeded cornices, and dado rails, particularly within the room at the curved corner, which also has a high skirting board. A closed-string dogleg service stair at the rear has stick balusters and turned newels. The building was historically noted as the principal coaching inn in Bridgwater.