4 Church Street

Location

Immediately to the rear of nos 21 & 22 Broad Street, which occupies the corner of Broad Street and Church Street.

Exterior

History: The buildings appear to have been built as a single development, c1800-1820. No 2 was probably built as a house, with a small shop inserted in the later C19; Nos 3-4 were built c1800-20, almost certainly as a warehouse serving the grocers' business in No 22 Broad Street. The properties now comprise 2 shops and a restaurant.

Exterior: Brick with slate roof. No 2 is 4 storeys, a single window range, with inserted shop front of late C19 type to ground floor, and 12-pane sash windows with steep cambered heads above. The ware-house range is also 4 storeys, a 4-window range, with paired openings either side of the former loading bay which is now expressed as a slightly recessed narrow bay with inserted windows. Small shop-front inserted to the left of a surviving original doorway, with high overlight and cambered brick head. Larger shop front (now the restaurant) inserted to the right. Original pattern of openings in the upper storeys survives virtually intact (though the windows themselves are renewed). The deep dentilled eaves band continues across both properties.

Listed as part of a group of buildings at the centre of the town, and as a representative example of a warehouse built to serve commercial premises. This is a building type which was once common in Welshpool and this is a prominently sited example which has retained the functional qualities of its design through subsequent changes of use.