History

County Constabulary dated 1891, possibly by Lloyd, Williams & Underwood, architects, of Denbigh, whose style it resembles. It was built adjacent to the former County Court (now Library), the prisoners moved a short distance from the prison cells to timber cells in the Court.

Exterior

Police station, in the Tudor-gothic style often favoured for public buildings in a country town context. Symmetrical 2-storey 3-window range with slightly advanced central gabled bay. Constructed of rock-faced snecked stone with yellow sandstone dressings under a slate roof with stone end stacks. Detail includes sandstone quoins, plinth, string course and raised copings on kneelers. Sandstone windows with chamfered mullions and transoms, containing iron casements with horizontal glazing bars. Central bay incorporates entrance. Shallow 4-centred-arched doorway in moulded sandstone surround containing a boarded door with strap hinges, flanked by narrow round-arched sidelights containing stained glass quarries. Over the entrance is a tablet under a stepped moulded sandstone head, reading 'County Constabulary 1891'. To the upper storey is a tall stepped gable projecting through the eaves, containing a cross-window, with stained glass quarries to the upper lights. Sandstone panel towards top of gable with a roundel bearing a shield; ball finial to apex. To outer bays, cross-windows to ground floor with stained glass quarries to upper lights, and 3-light mullioned casements to 1st floor.
External stacks to ends, with octagonal-ended grouped shafts of dressed stone. East gable end has a single light to each storey, to R of stack, detail as front elevation. Gabled rear wing, the E side with similar window. A later flat-roofed block adjoins the SE corner. Adjoining W gable end is a single-storey flat-roofed block with corbelled sandstone cornice. It has a boarded door with strap hinges under a 5-pane overlight to L and a large fixed iron-glazed window to R, both under flat sandstone lintels. To the centre, above the cornice is a raised segmental pediment. A tall stone wall rises up to rear, beyond which is a further single-storey gabled range orientated N-S, with a boarded door with small-pane overlight to W front, and C20 part-glazed window.
In front of the police station, low forecourt boundary walls of rock-faced stone with chamfered sandstone copings, surmounted by plain iron railings with spear finials, and a band of scrollwork beneath the top rails. Gateways to the 2 entrances: square piers of dressed sandstone with shaped capstones, each face with an arch over a circular boss; single gates in similar style with lock rail and scrolled end posts. The railings return at right angles at E end and join NE angle of building. A snecked stone wall with triangular sandstone coping continues E along roadside, and includes a gateway leading into a possible former garden.

Interior

Interior not inspected.

Reasons for Listing

Listed as a well-detailed and little-altered purpose-built police station, retaining its late C19 character.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29507888

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)