Top Rank Club (formerly Albert Hall) is a Grade II listed building in the Swansea local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 30 March 1987. Monument.
Top Rank Club (formerly Albert Hall)
- WRENN ID
- floating-terrace-woodpecker
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Swansea
- Constituency
- Swansea West MP: Torsten Bell (Lab)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 30 March 1987
- Type
- Monument
- Address
- Top Rank Club (formerly Albert Hall), Castle
- OS grid reference
- SS 653 931
- Coordinates
- 51.62134, -3.94708
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The Top Rank Club, formerly known as the Albert Hall, is a three-storey building featuring a wide asymmetrical painted frontage. The right side has an open pedimented bay, with a cornice and blocking course, twin columns adorned with acanthus bands, and Ionic pilasters framing the upper tripartite windows, although the top floor windows are blocked. The design includes anthemion bands and fluted pilasters on the outer bays. The left section, which has five bays, continues this decorative style, with a heavy cill band above banded pilasters on the ground floor. The building has pivot windows and a modernized entrance canopy.
The long flank facing De La Beche Street consists of three sets of three bays and two additional bays. It features a dentil cornice, exposed rubble, keyblocked openings, and arched openings on the first floor, all of which are blocked. Above the arched ground floor treatment, there is a cill band with recessed inner openings and impost bands. The rear has twin square-headed larger openings. The roof is modern and metal-clad, equipped with ventilators.
Inside the auditorium, the ornamented ceiling is notable for its long guilloche panels and coffering, which includes central ventilator grilles. The swagged frieze and segmental arched ceiling over the rear balcony add to the interior's character. The cantilevered and bowed gallery fronts are decorated with frond and wreath motifs, supported by pilastered treatment below. The main landing features an Art Deco frieze and well-crafted tube handrails on the stairs.
Local climate
Top Rank Club (formerly Albert Hall) sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,380 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 97% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 98% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 14 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 87% of listed buildings. Of these, 5 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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