Exhange Buildings

Exchange Buildings, located at Nos 20-26 (even) and 2-6 (even) Park Street, is an English Baroque style structure built over three storeys and an attic, featuring a domed corner. The ground floor is characterized by brown glazed brick piers, while the upper floors are constructed of red brick with extensive dressings in matt grey faience that mimic stone. The building has a slate roof and brick ridge stacks, with plain rear elevations made of rubble stone.

The elevation facing Market Street consists of eight bays arranged in a 1-6-1 pattern, while the Park Street side has seven bays arranged in a 2-4-1 configuration, highlighted by an ornate corner bay at the northwest angle topped with a dome.

On the ground floor, channelled glazed piers separate the shopfronts, with two narrower bays on Market Street providing access to upper offices. The grey faience caps feature pendant labels between fascia panels, topped by a moulded cornice. The upper floors display slightly projected flanking bays with channelled faience angle piers, moulded caps with pendant labels, and an overall finely detailed moulded cornice with a pulvinated frieze that is broken forward over the angle bays. The windows are small-paned sashes in the Queen Anne style, vertically linked. The plainer centre bays have shouldered architraves and cornices, while the outer bays are adorned with pediments on brackets at the first floor and cornices on brackets at the second floor. The angle bay is fully clad in faience on the upper floors, featuring a canted two-storey bay, with the main cornice wrapping around, broad front sashes with pediments at the first floor, flat cornices at the second floor, and narrow lights on the canted sides topped with plain cornices.

The attic floor includes large lunettes above the flanking bays, with faience arches, a cornice, coping, and side piers, along with red brick walling and a row of eaves that break for brick dormers. These dormers are segmental-headed with faience keystones and coping. The angle dome is designed in two stages, featuring a lower canted section with one window and two faience piers, leading to an octagonal drum with scrolled faience angle buttresses, small square windows, and a leaded bell-cast dome topped with a wooden spike finial.