Caernarfon Royal Town Council Offices, including 10 Bangor Street

Caernarfon Royal Town Council Offices

This High-Gothic Revival building comprises an L-shaped 3-storey main range with basement on the corner of Bridge Street and Pavilion Hill, together with a later 2-storey wing with basement facing Pavilion Hill. Both elements are constructed of coursed rock-faced stone with freestone dressings and slate roofs. The original range has steep-pitched roofs behind coped gables, while the later wing features a slender lead spirelet with weathervane dated 1912.

The principal entrance is on Pavilion Hill, where the earlier range presents three asymmetrical bays on a steep slope. The entrance itself is a prominent feature: the doorway in the higher left entrance bay is set beneath a gabled hood with foliage stops and a crocketed finial. Double panelled doors have raised fields to the bottom panels, and are surrounded by a ringed nook shaft with foliage capitals and a lintel engraved "1884". Above the doorway is a pointed overlight containing a foiled circle with patterned glass. A brass plaque above the arch records the opening of the building in 1884. The entrance bay has shallow gabled buttresses with stair windows above the doorway. The lower landing contains a 3-light window with coloured glass and a moulded surround featuring shafts and crocket capitals, partially obscured by the gabled hood. Above this window is a band of shields alternating with square foliage panels. The upper landing window is 2-light with shafts, crocket capitals, and a pointed arch over a tympanum containing a foiled circular light with coloured glass. A hood mould continuous with an impost band crowns this arrangement. Arcaded eaves with gargoyles at the corners sit beneath a coped parapet.

To the right of the entrance is a recessed bay followed by a gabled end bay. The centre recessed bay contains a blocked 3-light mullioned basement window, while the lower storey has a 3-light mullioned and transomed window with coloured glass above the transom. The first floor displays a 3-light window in a surround with ringed shafts bearing foliage capitals and trefoil heads incorporating patterned glass. Above, in the upper storey, the centre bay has three sash windows below the eaves cornice and a large glass panel in the roof lighting the original art room. The right-hand end bay contains two basement windows in stone surrounds. At ground and first-floor levels is a shallow castellated 2-storey 3-light oriel window corbelled out on a thin band of relief foliage beneath the sill. The lower storey of this oriel has coloured glass above the transom, while the middle storey features a surround with ringed shafts bearing foliage capitals and trefoil heads with patterned glass. The upper storey contains a 2-light geometrical window with ringed shafts and foliage capitals. All windows incorporate 2-pane sashes, some of which were renewed in 2001.

The two-bay Bangor Street elevation (including 10 Bangor Street) has a basement with thin pilasters bearing end foliage capitals (partly missing on the right side) below consoles enriched by foliage and trefoil panels. The consoles are crowned by prominent seated dragons, now missing at the centre. The original shopfront has a moulded cornice over a blank stone fascia, though late twentieth-century alterations are evident to the shop details. Above the basement are castellated 2-storey 3-light oriel windows similar to those on the Pavilion Hill elevation. The upper storey has 2-light geometrical windows carried above the eaves beneath coped gables on moulded kneelers. The moulded cornice incorporates a corbel table.

The later wing on Pavilion Hill presents three asymmetrical bays, with a projecting wider central bay. The right-hand bay contains a cross window and another cross window, both incorporating 2-pane sashes, positioned above corresponding blocked basement windows. The central bay has a double panelled door beneath a mullioned overlight, which was cut down from an original cross window, with another cross window to its right. The left-hand bay contains a single cross window. The upper storey has windows similar to those below, lighting the council chamber and incorporating patterned glass, with a sill band. The central bay is further enriched by a thin band of foliage beneath the sill, and the windows are recessed beneath a blind pointed arch with hood mould and foliage stops. In the tympanum are three blind panels, the central containing a circular window in a cusped surround, while the outer panels bear shields displaying three leopards, the arms of Edward I. A coped gable with a central attached shaft on a shield corbel features a crocketed pinnacle. The roof in the outer bays is behind a coped parapet on a moulded eaves cornice incorporating a stone rainwater head.

The left gable end of the Pavilion Hill elevation is pebble-dashed. A corbelled first-floor stack bears a shield in relief, with its upper portion of rock-faced stone. The lower storey contains 3-light mullioned and transomed windows, while the upper storey has smaller 2-light mullioned windows, of which the right-hand example retains its original intricate glazing pattern. The earlier range has a brick rear elevation.

Interior

The main entrance opens into a stair hall with a decorative tile floor and a full-height open-well stair featuring turned balusters and newels with a panelled dado. The lower landing constitutes the ground floor. On this and other landings are doorways to the original rooms in the main range, each with fluted surrounds, consoles, leaded overlights, and panelled doors.

The rooms of the original library and institute comprise a former reading room in the lower storey, a lecture room in the middle storey, and an art room in the upper storey. The library features a boarded ceiling with moulded spine and cross beams with ribs forming diamond panels, a central cast iron column and a cast iron pilaster against the Bangor Street wall, both with Corinthian capitals. The room contains a large cartoon of the 1911 investiture of the Prince of Wales by Christopher Williams. The lecture room contains a similar cast iron column and pilaster and retains moulded spine and cross beams, though subdivided by partitions. The art room has a collar-beam roof obscured by a suspended ceiling and contains a cast iron fireplace with decorative tile work set within a wooden fielded-panel surround with consoles to the mantelpiece.

The later wing contains offices on the ground floor and a council chamber in the upper storey. The council chamber has a ribbed barrel ceiling on a bracketed cornice, with three wrought iron roof trusses. The boarded ceiling incorporates two lantern lights, and the walls have a panelled dado. The chamber retains its original oak seating.

In the basement of the later wing are former public baths with glazed tile walls and terrazzo floors. The original kiosk with small-pane glazing is retained at the entrance from the bottom of the stairs, behind which is a towel cupboard with a panelled door and a waiting room retaining an original bench and half-lit panelled door. The changing room partitions have been removed and replaced, though the original bath cubicles are retained, with terrazzo panels in steel frames sharing a common drainage trough.