Morgan Arcade Building & Morgan Arcade

The Morgan Arcade Building and Morgan Arcade are a late 19th-century commercial building of four storeys and three bays, accompanied by a circa 1896 arcade. Number 33, known as Morgan Buildings, is faced with pink Forest of Dean, yellow Guiting stone, and pale grey Forest of Dean ashlar. It has a slate roof and end chimneys. The window openings are round-arched, with the exception of the centre bay on the third or attic storey, which features a three-light rectangular headed window. The end bays of the attic storey have windows with keystones and cornices that jut into the roof space. Splayed end pilasters are present, and the end bays have paired windows. The central window has rectangular side lights flanked by columns. An entablature projects forward over the pilasters and columns.

The first floor has a similar window pattern, but features quoined pilasters with gablets above and brackets over the centre bays. A cornice runs along the top. A plate glass shop front occupies the ground floor, with an entrance to the Morgan Arcade centrally located. The east front, facing onto the Arcade, includes an external passageway at first floor level and a balustraded parapet. The north and south walls of the east-west wings each contain two rectangular first-floor windows.

The Morgan Arcade itself is a two-storey structure covered by a single span trellised iron frame supporting a glazed roof. The framework of each bay rests on semi-octagonal columned supports, topped by a cornice and a short balustraded panel above the first floor of each bay. Each bay on the first floor has Venetian windows with moulded architraves, dripstones, keystones, and panelled spandrels. Shop fronts are present on the ground floor. The arcade spans from the east end of Morgan Buildings, with numbering of the individual components being erratic. The north side comprises numbers 7 to 9-23 (odd numbers), and the south side comprises numbers 10 to 16 and numbers 20 to 24 (even numbers).

The crossing has a concave north face (numbers 25 and 30) and a concave south face (numbers 26 and 27), each featuring two Venetian windows and a lunette. A central island, with a convex face towards St Mary Street, includes numbers 28 and 29, and has single-light round-headed windows on the first floor. The north-east continuation of the Morgan Arcade, encompassing numbers 31 to 39 (odd numbers) on the north side and Morgan’s Stores on the south, curves and incorporates single-light round-headed first-floor windows, with 14 openings including two blank openings on each side. A Venetian window is located on the first floor at the east end of the arcade.