The Arcade

Market Chambers, incorporating 5-6 Market Street, and The Arcade.

The building is in Renaissance style of 3 storeys and attic. It is constructed of pale brick with red brick banding and freestone dressings including frontispiece, sill bands and cornices, and a slate roof. The symmetrical 5-bay front has end and central bays topped by pedimented attic storeys, the outer bays having oval shaped windows and the central bay acroteria and urns and a pair of lintelled windows. The central frontispiece is brought forward and is composed of a moulded segmental pediment over a traceried lunette with swagged ornament in the upper storey. An aedicule in the middle storey frames a tripartite window with bukranium-sculptured lintel and has paired and cabled pilasters. Below the sill is a facial mask with scrolled enrichment. In the lower storey is a dentil cornice over a round-headed entrance with pilasters, which are tapered at the top. Panelled double doors are beneath a radiating fanlight.

Sash windows have margin glazing and are beneath overlights. The windows are round-headed in the upper storey and square headed in the middle storey, with triple windows in the bays offset from the centre and double windows in the outer bays. The lower-storey shop fronts are modernised, but retain the fascia with end consoles to the R of centre (Nos 5c and 6). The L side (5a-b) continues around the L side to Church Street, with a splayed angle housing the doorway, with single windows above it, and has a single-bay return with aired windows in the upper storeys and pedimented attic similar to the front. Further L is the former hall, now The Arcade. This has details similar to the main Market Street front, but is only 2-storey height. Its upper storey has 4 windows, while in the gable is a broad round-headed window with radiating and marginal glazing bars. The lower storey retains its fascia with end consoles (altered on the R) and a pedimented doorway L of centre with clasped consoles and a modern entrance to its R.

The opposite elevation faces a passage and the Market Taven Hotel to the N. The front of No 6 continues around this side, where it has a splayed angle incorporating the doorway similar to the L side, beyond which is a single bay with attic similar to the Church Street elevation. The Arcade beyond this has a round-headed doorway added after it ceased use as a town hall, with a triple window in the upper storey.

The Arcade has 7-bay roof of arched-brace steel trusses on corbels with a span of 9.75m. The 3 central bays have apex ridge lights. A proscenium arch is at the N end with pediment and classical capitals. The central aisle has plain Tuscan iron columns with plain entablature demarcating the stalls.