The Masonic Temple, including Tyler's Residence

The Masonic Temple, including Tyler's Residence

A roughcast and painted building with Welsh slate roofs, designed in an understated Classical style. The structure comprises two storeys and five windows on the front façade, rising to three storeys on the right-hand side. The plan is H-shaped, with long sides parallel to the street and a bar stretching back between them. The centre three bays project forward and are topped with a pediment, forming a miniature temple front. The ground floor features an arched centre door with part-glazed doors on either side; the right-hand door serves as the entry to the Tyler's Residence. Behind the façade, the Tyler's Residence angles away from the core of the building at an acute angle. A steep slope on the left side descends to a basement corridor entrance. Bands of decoration run across at door head and first floor cill height, decorated with the square and compasses of the Freemasons between and to either side.

The first floor has plain pilasters with niches replacing windows in the outer bays and a round-headed 6-over-6 pane sash window at the centre. A letter G appears in the pediment. The left-hand recessed wing has a 6-over-6 pane sash on each floor. The right wing, with three storeys, has an additional 3-over-3 pane sash under the eaves. The roof is plain with ridge tiles and stacks on either gable. Tall recessed panels occupy each gable. The centre wing has a single-storey lean-to corridor on the south side, otherwise featureless. The rear wing has a recessed panel in the south gable with another square and compasses. The west elevation overlooking the river has an additional understorey with two doors and two small windows. The first floor features a canted oriel flanked by blind recesses; the second floor has one modern plastic window unit and three blind recesses, with a plain low-pitch roof.

The front block houses the main entrance and Tyler's Residence. The centre contains the Temple, entered from the rear via a lean-to passage on the south side. The rear block contains meeting rooms. Whether any theatre survives is questionable. The entrance foyer has a two-panelled wall facing the entrance which may represent former doorways into a theatre, presumably with a stage at the far end, but no evidence of this survives in the Temple itself. The Temple has an arched balcony on the north wall with a wrought-iron railing incorporating the square and compasses; otherwise features plain plasterwork and finish with Masonic furnishings. The meeting rooms are plain.

The Tyler's Residence is entered through the right-hand door of the front block and comprises three storeys, with the middle floor extending only across the whole front of the building, containing rooms over the foyer. A substantial red sandstone rubble wall across the centre and right-hand side of the residence contains two narrow splayed openings where plaster has been stripped away. One opening is on the central staircase to the first floor and would have faced west towards the river as originally built; the residence's bathroom now occupies the other side of this wall. Another opening is in a first-floor room wall and pointed north up Monk Street. The residence has modern fireplaces and furnishings.

The basement below the Masonic Hall is accessed by a sloping corridor from the front car park descending to the rear of the hall. Stone walling appears at lower levels, with brick and later materials above. Substantial square-cut timbers in the basement support the hall above. A disused understorey at the rear contains a brick oven.