Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
16728
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
11/03/1981
Date of Amendment
29/02/1996
Name of Property
Former Royal Oak Flannel Factory
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Powys
Community
Welshpool
Town
Locality
Welshpool
Easting
322545
Northing
307512
Street Side
N
Location
Set back to the rear of the Royal Oak Hotel, at right angles to the street.
Description
Broad Class
Recreational
Period
History
Exterior
History: Built c1830 as a flannel factory, sited so as to enable the use of water power, alongside the Lledan Brook. No evidence of the power system survived C20 alterations - it is possible that the building was hand-powered. In 1924, the interior of the building was re-ordered to permit its use as a cinema, and an entrance block was built onto the gable (possibly on the site of an earlier building for instance a wheel house?). In use as a cinema until 1938 and subsequently disused until conversion to flats in 1994-5.
Exterior: Random local rubble with slate roof. A long and narrow single range - 4 storeys with a basement. 14-window range. Basement storey openings are all blocked (and appear to have been so for some considerable time); upper windows are regularly spaced and aligned, and all have cambered voussoir heads. In the E elevation a former loading bay towards the S has been filled in, and a wide entry with sliding doors inserted on the ground floor. The main entrance to the building is through the former cinema vestibule block: this is 2 storeyed, trapezoidal in plan: recessed centrepiece with moulded architrave houses paired doors divided by a pilaster to the ground floor, and a band of 4 small paned windows above. Heavy cornice bands surmount this, and there is a central tripartite window with small panes in moulded scrolled architrave above. Adjoining the building against the S gable end is a lower range with a massive segmentally arched opening filled in which may at one time have been connected to the factory.
Interior: The original interior of the building had been largely gutted on conversion to a cinema, and very little of the original structure is visible inside.
The building has been altered on conversion, but retains its external character as a former industrial building which is of considerable historical interest as an urban factory building on a large scale - the only one to survive in Welshpool.
References: Ion Trant, The Changing Face of Welshpool, 1986, p.126.
Interior
Reason for designation
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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