Caernarfon Youth and Community Centre

Caernarfon Youth and Community Centre is a Jacobean style single-storey former school dating to 1856, with a basement to the rear where the ground falls sharply. The walls are constructed of snecked stone with freestone dressings and quoins. Windows are mullioned and transomed throughout. The main roof is renewed slate set behind a parapet, while the left-hand wing has a hipped roof on moulded stone eaves. The building features paired stone end stacks on the main range, a similar ridge stack on the left-hand wing, and a ridge stack with a single shaft and gabled end bellcote on the rear wing.

The plan comprises a main north-facing east-west range with a wing set back from the left end, and a wing placed centrally at the rear to the south.

The main north-facing front displays an embattled porch positioned in the angle with the left-hand wing. The porch has an ogee lintel to replaced doors and overlight, with a cross window to the right beneath a parapet bearing a panel reading "Boys" in raised letters on the central merlon. Above it is a date stone inscribed "1856" in raised numerals. Behind the porch the wall is raised between clasping panelled buttresses with bold polygonal pinnacles. A stepped 4-light window with narrow flanking lights sits beneath a corbelled band, surmounted by a parapet bearing an inscription panel reading "Board School" in raised letters.

To the right of the porch are three bays: the outer bays are brought forward under shaped gables with blind loops and feature stepped 4-light windows, while the narrower central bay has a cross window. The left-hand wing displays a 4-light double-transomed window under a shaped gable on both side walls, with its gable end featuring two stepped 4-light windows in bays brought forward under shaped gables.

The left (east) gable end of the main range has 4-light windows flanking a central external flue beneath a blind quatrefoil in a spheric triangle to the gable. The right (west) gable end has 4-light windows with double transoms flanking an external flue, above which is a blind loop in the gable.

The rear, incorporating a basement storey, has three bays under shaped gables on each side of the rear wing. Each 3-bay group has 4-light triple-transomed windows in the outer bays, while the central projecting bay contains a smaller 4-light window with single transom and blind loop in the gable. The basement has 4-light windows, except the inner bay on each side of the rear wing, which has replaced double doors.

The rear wing has replaced lintelled doors set back from the angle with the main range in its side walls, leading to stone steps with railings on the right and steel escape stairs on the left. It also has 4-light mullioned and transomed windows. In the basement, slightly stepped, are 4-light mullioned and transomed windows. The right (east) side also has a blocked former doorway on the left side. The gable end contains a pair of stepped 4-light windows beneath a wide inscription panel with letters missing after the first letter B, and a blind quatrefoil in a spheric triangle to the gable. The basement has two cross windows.

The building has been largely altered with the removal of partitions. The basement originally housed a gymnasium and assembly hall.