Former Royal Oak Flannel Factory

Cadw's description

Location

Set back to the rear of the Royal Oak Hotel, at right angles to the street.

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.