The Arcade

The Arcade comprises a late 19th-century block of shops and offices with a central arcade running through to the rear, built in 1899 by Henry Herbert of Ammanford. The building is constructed of red brick with yellow and red terracotta dressings, and has a slate roof, coped gables, and three red brick stacks. It is three storeys and an attic in height, with a five-window front. A two-storey entrance arch opens the arcade, while other ground-floor sections feature shopfronts. The first and second floors have paired, camber-headed windows with unusual tracery in the upper sashes and moulded yellow brick surrounds. The attic has a red terracotta balustrade and five double-curved dormers, each with arched yellow brick surrounds and ball finials. Decorative panelled piers and terracotta friezes, largely lost, are present between bays on the upper floors. The first and second floor sill-courses project over the piers, and the eaves course is moulded in red terracotta. The left end of the building features sunk panels rather than raised piers. Barclays Bank occupies Nos 9-11 and has been largely altered. No. 13 retains an original moulded terracotta frieze and a double-fronted shopfront, while No. 15 retains a brick shop window surround and possibly the frieze, though it is now obscured by a 20th-century fascia. The arcade entrance is constructed of red terracotta with decorated spandrels, a large keystone, a frieze, and flanking triangular-section, corbelled shafts with finials. The entrance arch is wider than the bays elsewhere and omits the first-floor piers. The interior of the arch has yellow brick side walls. The rear of the building is constructed of rubble stone and yellow brick.

The arcade itself is of modest architectural character, with low, curved lattice trusses supporting a gabled, transparent roof. Shops originally lined both sides, with low boarded upper floors containing casement windows. Originally there were five shops on each side; now there are four to the left, three to the right, and one on each side subsumed into Nos 13 and 15 College Street. The arcade features plate glass shop windows with recessed doors, bracketted fascias, and yellow brick piers. The shops are stepped up a slope. The end walls are stuccoed with hipped slate roofs.

The Arcade and the adjoining Nos 1-7 were originally nearly identical, but Nos 1-7 have lost their original windows, chimneys, and dormers. Both blocks were built for Evan Evans, Chemist, who also constructed the Palace Theatre at the end of the Arcade in 1914, though this theatre has since been demolished.