Royles Pharmacy, including adjoining ranges to the rear

Royles Pharmacy, including adjoining ranges to the rear

A two-storey shop and house with L-shaped rear additions ranged around a narrow courtyard. The main front block is constructed of whitened rubble and brick with timber-framed origins, featuring a hipped slate roof with lead flashings. A large stone lateral chimney stands to the left, with a tall lateral brick chimney to the right.

The main front block displays a late Victorian shop front with a central entrance recessed between plain shop windows. The entrance comprises 4-panel half-glazed doors with a rectangular overlight. Flanking the shop windows are blind narrow panels below decorative consoles, framing a simple fascia and moulded and dentilated cornice. The first floor has two 12-pane unhorned sashes dating to the early 19th century with projecting stone sills. Two contemporary squat 12-pane sashes are positioned above under the eaves. To the right of the front elevation, a tall entrance to the rear courtyard features a 6-panel door with a blind panel above and surmounting moulded pediment.

The right side elevation contains a 16-pane early 19th-century unhorned sash window and a large 8-pane mid-19th-century sash. A modern part-glazed door stands to the right with two late 19th-century plain sashes above. The courtyard has a flagged pavement to the centre with a cobbled section to the left and brick-laid section to the right.

Set back to the rear of the main block and facing the courtyard to the west is a 2-storey, 2-bay parlour wing of whitened brick with flush 19th-century plain sash windows. Those to the ground floor sit in openings with segmental heads. Adjoining this flush to the right is a storeyed stable block of whitened rubble, continuously roofed with the parlour wing. This has two entrances and a half-window to the left with 4-pane early 20th-century glazing. The right-hand entrance leads to an inner entrance at right-angles, which is the primary hall entrance of the sub-medieval house and retains its original stopped-chamfered wooden frame. The left entrance retains its early 19th-century boarded door and pegged wooden frame. Two boarded windows to the former hayloft above have pegged frames, all openings featuring segmental heads with brick voussoirs.

At right-angles to the right is the parlour section of the former house, with the walls of the hall section incorporated within the stable link block to the left. This visible section, facing north across the courtyard, is of whitened rubble with two square-headed entrances to the ground floor with early 19th-century frames and boarded doors. A square loading bay with boarded door stands above. The right-hand entrance gives onto a covered flagged passage, created in the early 19th century by reducing the former parlour, leading to a long flight of stone steps providing access to an overgrown revetted garden to the rear.

The office to the rear of the shop contains an early 19th-century stone fireplace with incised decoration, basket arch and original iron grate. Beamed ceilings throughout the rear ground floor rooms feature wide stopped-chamfered main beams, plastered with characteristic late 17th-century ogee stops and plain joists. A stepped-up rear room contains a 2-panel late 17th-century fielded door and a cellar beneath, with a black and orange counter-changed tiled floor of late Victorian date. Beyond this is a late 17th-century oak narrow well staircase with moulded rail, turned balusters and flat capping to square panelled oak newels, finished in modern paint.

To the right of the stair, within a rear entrance passage, is a fielded 6-panel door with an early plain brass lock and Art Nouveau finger-plates. This accesses a late Stuart panelled parlour featuring large-field full-height panelling with moulded dado rail and cornice and boxed lateral ceiling beam. The panelling displays late 19th or early 20th-century graining over an original oak floor. The left-hand corner section of panelling has been removed. A further false door appears on the entrance wall. At the far end, opposite the entrance, is a circa 1900 brick fireplace insertion. Flanking this are primary arched niches, both with segmental shelving, that to the right featuring fluted pilasters and a gadrooned arched niche-head. Panelled reveals and shutters flank the courtyard-facing windows with contemporary window seats.

The adjoining former stable section contains a boarded loft with plain joists and beams. The upper floor displays substantial late 19th and early 20th-century graffiti together with a small in situ cogged iron wheel. A 2-bay roof features a tie beam and raking struts.

The primary house section at the rear of the yard has a partly-cobbed floor and beamed ceilings with stopped-chamfered main beams and plain joists. The former hall section to the left has a large blocked-up window to the left of the door and another window to the left gable end, with old stone flagging. A large former fireplace to the rear contains a 19th-century oven and boiler. A timber-framed partition separates the hall from the former parlour to the right, originally containing wattle and daub panels though now infilled with old brick, with a bricked-up entrance to the right. An inserted brick partition divides the later passage from the former parlour to the right.