Survey Data

Reg No

40304014


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Historical, Social


Original Use

Bank/financial institution


In Use As

Bank/financial institution


Date

1900 - 1920


Coordinates

227317, 318735


Date Recorded

06/06/2012


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached four-bay three-storey Tudor Revival style bank, built c.1910, with three-storey return to rear. Pitched slate roof with pair of half-dormers, sandstone chimneystacks over party walls, rendered stack to return gable and cast-iron rainwater goods. Sandstone ashlar front elevation with painted ashlar bankfront at ground floor. String course and hood mouldings over paired window openings at first floor. Ashlar corbel to eaves and dentillated cornice to half-dormers. Smooth rendered gable elevations. Shopfront comprising tripartite transom-and-mullioned window, door opening with transom light and chamfered surround, all proud of the main façade, and surmounted by cornice with recent fascia. Pairs of square-headed openings to first and second floor with uPVC windows. Ground floor slightly raised above street level with recent concrete entrance steps. Joinery remaining in entrance lobby with glazed partitions separating banking area and former residential accommodation upstairs. Interior substantially altered.

Appraisal

This finely crafted bank building by Blackwood & Jury assumes a strong presence in the Main Street by virtue of its architectural detail, its larger scale, and greater height, making a key contribution to the streetscape. Typical for bank branches of this period, the architectural expression communicates stability and solidity. It forms a strong counterpoint to the modest street architecture of Ballyconnell, demonstrating the standing of banking institutions in the economy of a small market town. The façade is finely executed in local sandstone and its eclectic style with Tudor motifs and fine internal joinery is a good example of the architecture of the turn of the nineteenth century.