Queens Buildings and Liberties Bar (No. 3 of 9 buildings )

Queen's Buildings and Liberties Bar, Station Road, Colwyn Bay

This terrace of shopfront buildings is constructed of red brick with slate roof, blue brick and stone dressings. Each shop forms a 2-window range beneath a single stepped gable. The ground floors have been largely renewed, though some original detail survives in the form of moulded fascia brackets.

The W H Smith's premises features a particularly fine example of the company's house-style frontage, introduced in the 1920s. This incorporates a cast iron and glass canopy with stained glass pictorial roundels set into the side panels, and pictorial tiles to the fascia. The main windows have Cotswold stone stall risers and leaded upper lights. The first floor windows in this building represent a modification to the original terrace design and are formed as shallow oriel bows.

The original design, which survives across the rest of the terrace, features squared oriel windows with scallop-tiled lean-to roofs supported on curved brackets. These are divided by mullions into 3 lights. The stepped gables are divided by outer and central angled corbelled pilasters surmounted by ball finials, and contain 2 segmentally arched windows with high-set transoms and low reliefs in the tympana.

The Liberties Bar, the lowest building in the row, is a slightly later addition built to incorporate public offices and differs in style from the remainder. It has a 4-centred arched doorway to the left with an ogival mullioned overlight, and leaded overlights to an inserted window to the right. A blocked corner door is similar in character to the main entrance. The first and second floors have 3-light mullioned and transomed windows with leaded upper panes. A canted turret serving as an oriel over the corner displays 3 by 2-light mullioned windows, with parapet and frieze above. Stone panels set into the parapet are inscribed with the names of Denbighshire County Council, the National and Provincial Bank of England Ltd, and the Colwyn Bay and Pwllycrochan Estate Company, along with the date 1887. The building itself is dated 1892, as recorded in raised lettering above the left-hand window in a raised cartouche above the parapet. The turret terminates in a spirelet.

Interiors have been largely modernised, but the W H Smith's premises retains an excellent example of the company's 1920s house-style in its interior treatment. The ceilings feature 17th-century-style plasterwork including cable moulding and low relief shields and thistles. Further low relief plasterwork appears in friezes and above the stairs. The stairwell is fitted with mock timber wall treatment.