Survey Data
Reg No
40311012
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Northern Bank
Original Use
Bank/financial institution
Date
1860 - 1880
Coordinates
260597, 287534
Date Recorded
16/06/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached Italianate style three-bay two-storey bank, built c.1870, with flanking screen walls, two-storey return, and flat-roofed extension to rear. Now vacant. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles barge copings and rendered chimneystacks to gable ends. Decorative cornice on corbels with integrated profiled gutter. Ruled-and-lined rendered walls with channel-jointed render quoins. Square-headed margin-paned timber sash windows to first floor with continuous moulded string course at sill level and segmental stucco pediments supported on panelled architraves and corbel brackets. Round-headed window openings to ground floor in architvolt surrounds with decorative keystones supporting a stone string course with continuous sill course and one-over-one paned timber sash windows. Round-headed door opening with glazed fanlight and a replacement timber door recessed within advanced door surround having impost course and stucco scroll keystone under shouldered segmental cornice. Screen walls with half-round arched openings, recent timber gates to west, eastern arch infilled with two recent doorways. Original plinth wall and railings survive to front of east side, replacement railings and plinth walls to remainder with ramp to east of entrance.
Appraisal
A prominently located purpose built bank that forms an important part of the town's later nineteenth century architectural and commercial heritage. The freestanding composition is formal and symmetrical arranged around the main entrance porch with flanking screen walls. The Italianate cornice and window surrounds are motifs of Renaissance architecture, popular for banking architecture in the nineteenth century and making reference to the Italian origins of banking. The composition, scale, and detail of the building was designed to inspire confidence in the customer and add an air of urbane sophistication to the predominantly vernacular streetscape.