Royal Hotel, 4 Bellshill Road, Uddingston

Royal Hotel, 4 Bellshill Road, Uddingston

A substantial three-storey tenement building completed in 1876 by builder Wilson Walker. The structure comprises 19 bays across its main elevation, with shops occupying the ground floor and a former hotel at the corner with Bellshill Road, distinguished by a conical-roofed corner tower. The building cost £12,000 to construct and was built on the site of the village quoting green, which had previously been occupied by a row of thatched cottages.

The exterior employs channelled red ashlar sandstone at ground floor level to numbers 25 and onwards, whilst the remainder features polished ashlar sandstone with polished dressings. Architectural detailing is continuous around the building: a base course runs along the ground; cornices sit above shop fascias; cill cornices mark the first and second floors; string courses with consoled cornices appear above, with further cornices between the first and second floors to the tower; the tower itself carries consoled and scalloped cornicing. Windows throughout feature moulded, architraved margins, pedimented at first-floor level, with chamfered reveals to the tower windows. Channelled quoins articulate the corners.

The Main Street elevation is grouped as 4–10–5 bays. The central 10-bay block, slightly recessed, contains four shopfronts with two close doorways to ground, with windows grouped 3–2–2–3 at first and second floors. Tall wallhead stacks are evenly disposed above. The four-bay left block, slightly advanced, contains two shopfronts separated by a close doorway at ground level. At first floor are two pedimented windows flanking two segmental-pedimented bipartites. A date plaque to the centre with fan motif bears an arched cornice with block above to second floor. The four-bay right block includes the corner tower and features a moulded round-arched doorway with mask keystone flanked by channelled pilasters with heavily carved consoles supporting a segmental pediment, positioned to the left at ground; a shopfront occupies the outer left bay. First-floor fenestration comprises a single pedimented window flanked by segmental-pedimented bipartites. The tower carries a modern door at ground level (formed from a three-light window), with three-light windows to each upper floor and three narrow windows below the truncated conical roof, which features decorative wrought-iron brattishing.

The Bellshill Road elevation comprises four bays. A highly decorative doorpiece dominates the left-of-centre bay, employing Ionic colonettes and piers with entablature, bracketed cornice and balustraded parapet, angle dies, and central segmental panel bearing a harp motif with acroterion. This is now fitted with a replacement two-leaf timber panelled door. A further window occupies the bay to the left, whilst a barfront spans the two rightmost bays. Fenestration to the first and second floors mirrors the right-hand bays of the Main Street elevation. A tall wallhead stack stands to centre.

Original shopfronts retain plate glass, whilst windows are predominantly two-pane timber sash and case, though some replacements in uPVC and hardwood are present. The roof is covered in grey slate, with slate also applied to the conical tower roof; modern tiles cover numbers 7, 9 and 11. Tall multiflue ashlar corniced and shouldered wallhead stacks punctuate the roofline, truncated above number 9. Cast-iron rainwater goods are installed, with some moulded replacements present. Seven original clay cans remain to numbers 23 and 25.

The building was originally developed as the Royal Hotel, intended to serve travellers. However, the venture proved unsuccessful, complicated by its situation under licensing law of the period whereby hotels were the only establishments permitted to sell alcohol on Sundays. Licensing regulations required drinks to be served only to bona fide travellers, though this provision was widely abused by local custom. The date plaque bears the initials WW of builder Wilson Walker. The building forms an important townscape element alongside contemporary listed structures at 2, 6 and 8 Old Glasgow Road.