Queens Buildings and Liberties Bar (No. 7 of 9 buildings)

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

A terrace of red brick shops with slate roof, featuring blue brick and stone dressings. Each shop presents a 2-window range with a single stepped gable. The ground floors have been largely renewed, though some original shop front details survive, notably moulded fascia brackets.

The W H Smith's building displays a particularly fine example of the company's house style introduced in the 1920s. The exterior features a cast iron and glass canopy with stained glass pictorial roundels in the side panels and pictorial tiles to the fascia, with Cotswold stone stall risers and leaded upper lights in the main windows. The first floor windows here are shallow oriel bows, representing a modification to the original terrace design. The remainder of the terrace retains the original design of squared oriel windows with scallop tiled lean-to roofs supported on curved brackets to the first floor. These original oriel windows are divided by mullions into 3 lights. The stepped gables are divided by outer and central angled corbelled pilasters surmounted by ball finials, and feature 2 segmentally arched windows with high-set transoms and low reliefs in the tympana.

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

The interiors have been largely modernised. However, the W H Smith's building retains an exceptionally good example of the company's 1920s house style in its interior as well as exterior detail. The ceilings feature 17th-century-style plasterwork including cable moulding and low relief shields, thistles and other ornaments. Further low relief plasterwork appears in the friezes and in the wall above the stairs. The stairs themselves are faced with mock timber walls.