26 Cowell Street

26 Cowell Street is a building that was formerly the South Wales Union Bank. The ground floor of No 26 is largely destroyed, but part of the narrow shopfront of No 24 remains, featuring pilaster piers and a curved glass shop window. An elliptical arch above may still be visible beneath a 20th-century fascia. Historical photographs reveal that the original design included an ornate two-bay center with panelled piers, elliptical arched windows, and a moulded frieze, likely made of glazed or semi-glazed tile. To the right of the center was a shopfront similar to what remains today, and to the left was a narrower arched doorway to the bank, which has not survived.

The upper floors feature a prominent first-floor oriel window, flanked by a pair of four intricately carved timber brackets that support a carved and painted timber frieze. The second floor is tile-hung and includes an attic, each with two windows. There is a coved plaster cornice above the second floor and a keyed roundel in the attic gable. The first floor is roughcast, and the oriel window is of late 17th-century vernacular style, resembling a Venetian window but with top-lights on the outer lights, all featuring very small panes. This window style is repeated on the second floor, though smaller and flush, while the attic has pairs of small-paned casements topped with double-curved pediments. The apex roundel originally had glazing bars and floral festoon decoration. The gable features bargeboards and a metal sunflower finial. The side bays vary; the right bay has one window on each floor similar to those on the second floor of the center, with coved eaves and a small-paned flat dormer in the roof. The narrow left bay has a two-storey canted oriel that extends up to a belvedere turret, which has an octagonal tiled roof and a sunflower finial. The oriel features small-paned windows with top-lights on the two main floors, tile-hanging, and the turret has arch-headed small-paned windows on three sides, along with a moulded timber cornice and a bell-cast steep tiled roof.