12, Sadler Street

A commercial building, now used as offices with a residential flat above, was built around 1800, incorporating earlier fabric dating back to approximately 1370. The original building marked the development of the east side of Sadler Street and once bordered a north-south wall to the Cathedral Precinct. It is constructed of Doulting ashlar stone with a hipped Welsh slate roof hidden behind a parapet, and brick chimney stacks on stone bases.

The building is two bays wide and has three storeys. A plinth and a band course run between the upper floors, topped by a dentil cornice and a plain parapet. A 19th-century shop front occupies the ground floor, featuring panelled pilasters, a thin fascia, and a projecting cornice supported by corbel brackets. Two three-light display windows with central transoms, arched heads, and 3-centre-arched heads are framed within this shop front. A recessed central glazed door and matching fanlight are present, along with a six-panel door on the right, accessed by two steps and its own arched fanlight. The first floor has a pair of shallow, angled bay windows with twelve panes in each face, with the top tiers of panes having arched heads and lead flat roofs. The second floor features two pairs of sixteen-pane sash windows, each with a molded timber hood.

The rear elevation, facing Cathedral Green, is rendered and has a hipped slate roof. It’s three storeys high, with two wide bays containing large paired twelve-pane sash windows on the first and second floors. The ground floor has paired sixteen-pane windows to the left and a twelve-pane window to the right, with a central 19th-century flush panelled door framed by reeded pilasters, set on high stone plinths and beneath a "floating" cornice set on a deep stone frieze.

Both ranges of the building have steep hipped roofs, and the front range features a large rubble stack raised in brick on the north party wall. The interior remains uninspected. The building represents a fine example of commercial architecture from its period.