Castle Hotel, including railings & gate

Castle Hotel, Castle Square

This is a late Georgian style terrace comprising numbers 32 to 37 Castle Square, built on a steep site. The building consists of three storeys with an attic storey above, and a two-storey basement to the rear with single-storey basement to the front.

The main structure is constructed of Flemish-bonded brick with graded slate roofs on a moulded wooden cornice. Roofing has been replaced at No 32. Small skylights have been added, along with brick and roughcast chimneys. The visual emphasis of the terrace is provided by No 33, which projects forward under a pediment with stucco walls and three symmetrical bays. The remaining houses have two narrow bays each, creating an overall composition of 2+3+8 bays.

The basements to the front are of coursed rubble stone with windows mostly replaced in their original openings. The sash windows throughout are hornless with thin glazing bars and set under wedge lintels. Upper storey windows are 9-pane, while middle and lower storeys have 12-pane windows.

No 33 features a central entrance portico with tapering chamfered square columns on stone bases and replaced double doors with plain overlight. The pediment has a plain cornice and a round-headed attic window containing a 2-light casement. Windows in the lower storey are replaced in original openings.

The remaining doorways are positioned on the left side of Nos 34-37 and the right side of No 32. Each is framed with a stucco doorcase containing pilasters and consoles beneath a shallow hood. The doors are fielded-panel type under round-headed radial glazed overlights, except No 37 which has an added porch, and No 35 where glazing has been inserted into the middle and upper panels of the original door.

No 37 is distinguished by its roughcast front and a coursed stone stack with corbelled cap on the right, both dating to 1911. Its flat-roofed porch on the lower left features a 2-centred pointed arch in dressed surround with a boarded door, and a pair of narrow lights in each side wall under shouldered lintels. The lower right window is set in an architrave and retains its original 12-pane hornless sash. In the middle storey are two oriel windows inserted in the late 19th century on cast iron brackets, with 4-pane sash windows under a hipped lead roof with swept eaves, carried on cast iron colonnettes. The upper storey retains original 9-pane hornless sash windows in architraves. The basement retains a small-pane sash window.

The right gable end of No 37 was rebuilt in 1911 in coursed dressed stone following the demolition of adjoining houses. Two stone plaques, one in Welsh and one in English, set into the wall commemorate Baron Vaynol's gift of land for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1911. Each storey has a centrally placed 2-light mullioned window under a mould incorporating 2-light casements. The windows feature sill bands two courses thick of finely tooled stone.

The forecourt is enclosed by cast iron railings with spear finials mounted on a dwarf freestone wall. The gates to the cellar steps retain ironwork in a lattice pattern in chinoiserie style, except at No 36 where the ironwork has been replaced and at No 33 where an additional gate has been added to the left side. The front door gates are all replaced. The railings terminate at the right end of No 37 with a ramped return wall of coursed dressed stone abutting the house. Steps lead down to cellars beneath the pavement.

Internally, No 33 has been modernised and has lost its original plan form. No 34 has also lost much of its plan but retains an original open-well stair, originally positioned at the rear of the entrance hall, with plain balusters, wreathed handrail and moulded tread ends. The rear of No 34 retains some 4-pane sash windows on the left side, though otherwise windows are replaced and a lean-to has been added on the right side. The rear of No 33 projects forward, is pebble-dashed and has mostly replaced windows in original openings, with a narrow lean-to positioned right of centre. No 33 has a boarded basement door flanked by boarded-up windows. No 34 has a replaced basement window in an original opening.