Survey Data

Reg No

15310209


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic, Social


Previous Name

Bank of Ireland


Original Use

Bank/financial institution


In Use As

Bank/financial institution


Date

1870 - 1880


Coordinates

243530, 252983


Date Recorded

01/07/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached corner-sited four-bay two-storey bank, built c.1874, having a three-bay two-storey elevation to Mary Street (west) elevation. Roof hidden behind a raised parapet with a moulded ashlar limestone eaves cornice having an ashlar limestone blocking course over. red brick chimneystack to the east side of the main elevation having moulded cut limestone trim. Ashlar limestone construction to the ground floor with extensive cut limestone trim, including a bracketed cornice to the main (south) elevation and a moulded string course at window arch springing point. red brick construction over to the first floor. Segmental-headed window openings to the ground floor, set in segmental-headed recesses, with replacement windows. Square-headed window openings over to the first floor having cut limestone shouldered architraves with entablatures over (aedicules) and having replacement windows. Segmental-headed doorcase to the east end of the main façade (south) having a replacement door with a plain overlight above. Doorcase to the west end of main façade (south) now infilled with cash machine. Building overlooks The Square to the south with a four-bay two-storey red brick extension and a two-bay two-storey coursed rubble limestone extension to the north on the Mary Street elevation.

Appraisal

A highly appealing and extensively detailed two-storey Italianate Palazzo-style Victorian bank building, which retains its early form and character. This building was designed for the Bank of Ireland by the noted mid-to-late nineteenth-century architect Sandham Symes (1807-1894), architect of choice of the Bank of Ireland from c.1845 until c.1880. It is built in the palazzo-style that is typical of the architectural style favoured by Symes. This building looks earlier than its late nineteenth-century construction date as Symes had been using variations of the same designs for bank buildings for at least two decades. This building occupies an important corner site and has a commanding presence in the streetscape, reflecting the period when bank buildings were designed to express the solidity and wealth of the institution through their architecture. The form of the ground floor suggests that it originally conformed to the usual mid-to-late nineteenth-century formula of doorcases to either end (doorcase to the west end now infilled with a cash machine) of the main building with bank floor lit by central windows. This imposing building is an important addition to the streetscape and forms part of an unusually good and quite varied collection of mid-to-late nineteenth-century bank buildings in Mullingar.