Peacocks

Peacocks is an Edwardian/Queen Anne style building featuring bull-nosed rubble with terracotta dressings. It has a four-floor bracket cornice and a third-floor egg and dart cornice. The bays are divided by Ionic-derived pilasters that are fluted at the top floor. A central pedimented gable contains a niche at the apex with a statue of Edward VII, and a lunette with a keystone and a dated cartouche at the center. The outer bays feature two-storey bowed oriels with semi-circular first floors supported by keystones, which have full-height small pane windows. The third floor and oriels have small pane sash windows. The ground floor retains half-glazed door entrances, although a modern shop front has been inserted between them. The side elevations on Bath Street and Portland Street are similarly detailed. The building is three stories high with three windows, and the central second-floor windows are topped with a pediment below an arched and keystoned head. There is a shallow Phillips arcade with original Art Nouveau glazing on Bath Street, while a modern shop front is present on Portland Street.

The interior of the upper floors retains much of the original Coliseum cinema, which has now been converted for museum use. It features a rectangular auditorium with a two-tier gallery that has anthemion ornamented bowed fronts made by Macfarlane and Co of Glasgow. The space includes cast-iron columns with Corinthian capitals and swagged friezes, a ribbed ceiling with plaster roundels, and an elliptical proscenium arch.