Royal Buildings, 13, 15, 17 Main Street, Uddingston

Royal Buildings is a substantial three-storey tenement block built by builder Wilson Walker in 1876. The building stretches across 19 bays along Main Street and extends to Bellshill Road, featuring shops at ground floor level. A former hotel occupies the corner with Bellshill Road, marked by a distinctive conical-roofed corner tower.

The building is constructed in red ashlar sandstone at ground floor (channelled finish), with polished ashlar sandstone to the upper storeys and polished dressings throughout. Architectural detailing is comprehensive: a continuous base course runs around the building; cornices sit above the shop fascias; cill cornices mark the first and second floors; moulded architraved margins frame the windows with pedimented heads at first-floor level; channelled quoins emphasise the corners. The tower features chamfered window reveals, a consoled and scalloped cornice, and an additional cornice between the first and second floors.

On the Main Street elevation, the 19 bays are grouped as 4-10-5. The central 10-bay block is slightly recessed and contains four shopfronts with two close doorways at ground level. Above, ten single windows are grouped 3-2-2-3 across the first and second floors, with tall wallhead stacks disposed evenly at the roofline. The four-bay block to the left is slightly advanced and contains two shopfronts with a close doorway between. At first-floor level, this section features two pedimented windows flanking two segmental-pedimented bipartite windows; a date plaque with fan motif and arched cornice sits at second-floor centre. The four-bay block to the right is also slightly advanced and contains the corner tower. A moulded round-arched doorway with mask keystone, flanked by channelled pilasters with heavily carved consoles supporting a segmental pediment, is set to the left at ground level; a shopfront occupies the outer left, with a single window to centre and a bipartite to the right. First and second floors follow a similar pattern with pedimented and segmental-pedimented windows. The tower has a modern door (formed from a three-light window) at ground level, three-light windows at each floor, and three narrow windows below the truncated conical roof, which retains decorative wrought-iron brattishing.

The Bellshill Road elevation comprises four bays. The most ornate feature is a highly decorative doorpiece to the bay left of centre, incorporating Ionic colonettes and piers, an entablature with bracketed cornice and balustraded parapet, angle dies and a central segmental panel bearing a harp motif with acroterion. The replacement door is two-leaf timber panelled. A window occupies the bay to the left; a barfront spans the two bays to the right. Windows to the first and second floors match those of the Main Street elevation's right-hand four bays. A tall wallhead stack stands at the roofline centre.

Contemporary windows are primarily two-pane timber sash and case, with some replacements in uPVC and hardwood. Shop fronts feature plate glass. The roof is covered in grey slate, with slate also covering the conical tower roof; modern tiles have been applied to numbers 7, 9 and 11 (the left-hand four-bay block). Tall, multiflue ashlar corniced and shouldered wallhead stacks punctuate the roofline, those at numbers 23 and 25 retaining seven original cans; the stack above number 9 is truncated. Cast-iron rainwater goods are present, with some moulded replacements.

The building was constructed at a cost of £12,000 on the site of the village quoting green, which had been occupied by a row of thatched cottages. Historical sources including a photograph in Jamieson's book show the former Royal Hotel nearing completion in 1875-6. The hotel proved unsuccessful due to drunken behaviour on Sundays, when hotels were the only establishments permitted to sell alcohol. Although drinks should have been served only to bona fide travellers, locals abused this facility. The date panel on the building bears the initials WW, identifying Wilson Walker as the builder. Royal Buildings forms an important townscape element in conjunction with the contemporary buildings at 2, 6 and 8 Old Glasgow Road, which are listed separately.