The Malt Loaf public house including former No 10 Church Street

The Malt Loaf Public House, including former No 10 Church Street

The Malt Loaf is a 3-storey public house of 5 bays (grouped 2+3) with an irregular plan occupying a triangular corner site. The building has a narrower right end facing Church Street and a rear wing extending behind the two left-hand bays. It is constructed of cream roughcast with smooth-rendered quoins and a moulded eaves cornice. The steep slate roof is hipped at the right end where the building is narrower. Roughcast stacks are positioned at the left and right ends, set back from the right.

The main entrance is located in bay 2, featuring pilasters that rise to brackets supporting a camber-headed canopy with keystone. The round-headed doorway has a 3-pane overlight with coloured glass and a later ribbed door with half-glazed side panels of etched glass. Lower storey windows have fluted architraves with entablatures on fluted consoles, pediments, and curly aprons. These are 12-pane horned sashes, except for a narrower 8-pane sash window in bay 5, which represents the original entrance and is shown as a doorway in an early 20th-century photograph. Windows in the middle and upper storeys have smooth-rendered eared architraves with hornless sashes: 12-pane in the middle storey and shorter 9-pane in the upper storey.

The splayed right end has a 12-pane hornless sash window in a pedimented architrave in the lower storey, matching the front elevation. The broader left end is double-gabled with a central 15-pane sash window in the upper storey lighting the staircase.

The rear elevation facing Church Street is more complex. It features wide gables to the right and left with a narrower recessed central gable. The left side has two 2-pane sash windows in the lower storey, a 4-pane horned sash and a 12-pane hornless sash in the middle storey, and a 2-light casement window in the upper storey. A cast-iron street sign is mounted on the left side. A basement opening has been boarded up. The centre has a lean-to with an inserted window, above which sits a 1st-floor 12-pane sash window and a 2nd-floor sash window comprising 3 panes over a single replacement pane (originally 9-pane). An attic casement window sits in the gable. The right side, functioning as an effective rear wing, has 2-pane sashes at ground floor level, 1st-floor 12-pane sash windows, and in the 2nd floor a 2-light casement window to the right and a 9-pane sash window to the left, with an attic casement above.

Former No 10 Church Street is an 18th-century cottage originally built in a terrace with No 8 but now incorporated into The Malt Loaf public house. It is 2.5 storeys tall with roughcast walls, a steep slate roof, and a shared brick stack. The Church Street front has two windows in the lower storey with 2-pane sashes, both with etched glass to the lower sash. There is no external evidence of what was likely an original central entrance. The upper storey has 12-pane sashes of 4+8 panes. A single central roof dormer contains a 12-pane horizontal-sliding sash window.

The rear elevation has been altered with a mid-20th-century 1-storey lean-to extension. The upper storey has cross windows to the centre and left that extend above the eaves. The right side has a 2-pane horned sash window and an inserted window further right.

The building has been modernised.