8110

 

II  

Designated  

09/05/1988  

09/05/1988  

Royal Welsh Warehouse  

 

Powys  

Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn  

 

 

311148  

291379  

SW  

Prominently sited on the street line curving round towards the Railway Station from Kerry Road.  

Commercial  

 

1879 by David Walker of Liverpool for Pryce Jones, founder of the world's first mail order business in 1859. The initial building was added to in 1886-87, and a large new wing erected towards Kerry Rd in 1901. This included a post office to handle the immense volume of orders. The building remains in use as a department store.  

 

 

Group value.  

Royal Welsh Warehouse, Kerry Road, Newtown 7 bay front, 3 storey with attic and basement. Flemish bond brick with freestone dressings. Hipped roof. Stepped gable to centre with lettering "Pryce Jones, Royal Welsh Warehouse". Plain eaves cornice. Keystoned cambered windows, 3 to centre bay, pairs between pilasters to rest. Moulded attic cornice. Diocletian window to 2nd floor centre bay, ornate spandrels, paired windows to rest, lintels; sillband. 3 cambered windows to 1st floor centre bay, classical pilasters. Broad round arched windows to rest, plain Venetian Renaissance windows 1st floor band. Plain broad cambered arches with keystones to ground floor. Entrance to centre bay. Royal Arms cresting open pediment on consoles. Figure of Industry and daughters to tympaum. Detached pink marble columns, composite capitals, flanking pilasters. Modern lintel on brick piers inserted to support pediment. Armorial escutcheons to front and returns to porch. Recessed concave entrance hall. Decorative tympanum grill, sliding gates. Cambered arch, panelled and glazed inner doors. Plain lintels to basement windows. Commemorative exhibition medallions to pilasters inc. Philadelphia 1876, Vienna 1873. Cast iron lintels to some windows on rear. Extension of 1886 to left on rear. Gabled stair bay adjoins lift well with turret. Later wing of 1901 of 4 storeys with attic and dormers. Flemish bond brick. 10 bays curving into Kerry Rd. Advanced bays to corner and right end. Steep slate roofs, with railings to ridge platform, modern lift hoists. 3 light flat roofed dormers. Moulded arcade over eaves cornices. Paired shallow sash windows between twin pilasters to attic bays. Pediments with oculli over 3 windows to advanced bays. Attic cornice, plain entablature. Broad cambered gauged brick arches to tripartite top 3 storey windows, pilasters. 4 sash windows to 3rd and 2nd floors of advanced bays; banded pilasters, freestone 1st and ground floors. Plaques with Railway and Steamship motifs to pilasters of advanced bay on corner. 4 arched windows to 1st floors, keystones, impost bands. Paired fluted end pilasters, ball finials. Royal Arms of Edward VII to advanced bay on right, open pediment on brackets, fluted pilasters; plain flanking windows, rusticated end pilasters. Bay to corner similar with scrolled pediment. Heraldic medallion with hood to tympanum. Panelled double doors. Plain lintels to ground floor windows. A bridge formerly connected the building to the factory opposite at 3rd floor level (to the right of the corner entrance). Rear elevation similar to front with loading bay to right adjoining washroom tower with prospect cupola.