Evan Howells Butchers Shop

Cadw's description

Location

Situated on the NE side of Hannah Street in the town centre. Part of the former Thomas and Evans complex of shops, Nos. 22-25 of which are listed separately.

History

Part of the former Thomas and Evans store built in 1905. The building originally contained four purpose-built and fitted shops on the ground floor, company offices above and services in the basement. The firm of Thomas and Evans was founded in 1885 and constructed and furnished a wide range of shops in Porth and a number of factories and warehouses, all servicing the Rhondda. This shop was a beef butcher's; a similar nearby pork butcher's shop no longer survives.

Exterior

Fascia replaced and some damage to surrounds when security screen installed otherwise mostly intact. Plate glass shopfront with slender round corner mullions; shallow green tiled plinth; deep decorative reveal to left with green and white tiled panels by Minton Hollins (Stoke on Trent); doorway with billet moulded doorcase and double doors of plate glass with panels below; mosaic floor canopy with fittings.

Interior

A complete decorative tiled scheme mostly in green and white comprising painted panels of beef cattle within frames, other decorative panels of art nouveau motifs, set between coloured tiled dado and cornice; painted encrusted reputedly tin ceiling; range of metal meat hooks and racks; wooden butchers' blocks and wood block floor. To rear and below cool storage and reputedly one of the first fridges of the Rhondda; beneath the shop is reported to be a shaft to a furnace which disposed of waste and heated a number of shops and the Salem chapel (demolished), and a tunnel to the railway.

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* for its exceptionally complete, tiled, butcher's shop interior.