Barclays Bank

Barclays Bank, located at 53 Fawcett Street in Sunderland, is a bank building constructed in 1875 by architects Austin and Johnson for Wood's Bank. It is designed in the Baroque palazzo style and features ashlar stonework with cast-iron balconies and a slate roof. The building stands three storeys high with attics and has a five-by-three window arrangement.

The ground floor has rusticated stonework with renewed doors and semi-circular overlights at the end bays, featuring architraves above the keyed round-headed openings. The other bays contain renewed round-headed windows with recessed panelled aprons. Above, a giant Corinthian order is present, with square pilasters at the corners and attached round columns in the intermediate bays, all linked by elaborate first-floor cast-iron balconies. The first-floor sashes have lugged keyed architraves with glazing bars, while the second-floor sashes are elliptical-headed with moulded sills and aprons.

The building is topped with a prominent entablature that has a pulvinated frieze and a modillioned cornice. The hipped roof features side consoles for oeils de boeuf dormers in the central and end bays, along with taller segment-headed dormers in between. The right return of the building has three bays designed in a similar style, lacking doors, and includes three segment-headed dormers. There are also four set-back bays with a rusticated ground floor, featuring doors in the outer bays and tripartite windows with triple-keyed openings. The upper floors have a simpler design with cornices, pediments, and keyed architraves for various windows.

This building is an important corner structure, originally designed as a key component of a larger development that included the Subscription Library at No. 52, intended to complete the block.