The Arcade

The Arcade comprises a late 19th century block of shops and offices with an 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, topped with a slate roof, coped gables, and three red brick stacks. It is three storeys and an attic, featuring a five-window range. A two-storey entrance arch leads to the arcade, positioned in the second bay. The other ground floor bays feature shopfronts. The upper floors have paired camber-headed windows, notable for their unusual glazing tracery in the upper sash and moulded yellow brick surrounds. The attic is defined by a red terracotta balustrade and five coped, double-curved dormers, each with arched yellow brick window surrounds and ball finials. The upper floor bays are divided by panelled piers and have friezes, largely lost, over the ground and first floor bays, both in yellow terracotta. First and second floor sill-courses project forward over the piers, while the second floor eaves courses are moulded in red terracotta. The left end of the building features sunk panels in the walling, rather than raised piers. The ground floor shops have undergone alterations; No. 9-11 (formerly Barclays Bank) is heavily altered, No. 13 retains its original moulded terracotta frieze and a double-fronted shopfront, and No. 15 retains a brick shop window surround and possibly its frieze, which is now hidden by a 20th-century fascia. The arcade entrance is constructed of red terracotta, featuring decorated spandrels, a substantial keystone, a frieze, and flanking triangular-section, corbelled shafts with finials; the whole entrance is wider than the other bays, eliminating the first-floor piers. The side walls within the arch are of yellow brick. The rear of the building is constructed of rubble stone and yellow brick.

The arcade itself is of modest design, characterized by a low profile and curved lattice trusses supporting a gabled, transparent roof. There were originally five shops on each side, now reduced to four on the left, three on the right, and one each side within the arch, now incorporated into Nos. 13 and 15 College Street. The shops feature plate glass windows, recessed doors, bracketed fascias, and yellow brick piers. The shops are stepped up a slope, and the end walls are stuccoed with hipped slate roofs.

This building was originally part of a pair, with Nos. 1–7 adjoining, but those buildings have lost all original windows, chimneys and dormers. Both blocks were built for Evan Evans, Chemist, who also added the Palace Theatre at the end of the Arcade in 1914, which has since been demolished.