Bank House

Bank House is a detached town house, likely largely of the mid-18th century, with possible medieval stonework and later alterations. It is now used as surgeries. The building is constructed of brown brick in an irregular bond, with a grey slate roof largely hidden by parapets. The building appears to be of two or more builds, as evidenced by a staggered vertical joint near the centre of the front elevation. The front, facing White Friars, has irregular fenestration. A door of two flush panels, comprising two fielded panels and two glazed panels, is set within a timber frame with roses in the corners of the frieze and a later lattice porch. Below are three nearly flush, horned sashes with painted stone sills just above ground level, set within slightly cambered, gauged brick arches west of the door; one sash has 12 panes, the others have 4 panes each. To the east of the door is a sash window with 16 panes. The west part of the second story has three recessed 12-pane sashes, while the east part features a tall 10 x 3 pane stair window and a flush 12-pane sash. The third story has two recessed 16-pane sashes to the west and a flush 12-pane sash to the east. The building is finished with a stone coping and gable chimneys. The east side has a part-glazed door, a replaced second-story window, and a projecting stack. The south 2 meters of the east face are slightly recessed. The north face has three gables, and the intersections suggest that the central gable was built first, possibly as the north wing of an L-shaped house, the west wing of which would have coincided with the central portion of the present west front. An internal corner chimney and a portion of probably medieval stonework near the centre of the first story corroborate this theory. The first story of the north face has a sandstone plinth and an altered door in a lattice porch similar to the front. The second story has a flush tripartite sash window with 4, 12, and 4 panes in the east wing, a nearly flush 12-pane sash in the centre, and a similar sash set towards the centre of the west wing. The third story has a central 16-pane flush sash in each of the three gable ends. The north face may have once formed a symmetrical front. The interior was not inspected during the listing assessment. The southwest room, now a waiting room, retains panelled embrasures, six-panel doors with carved lions' heads at the corners of the architraves, and a panelled plaster ceiling, originally serving multiple rooms. The former kitchen, located in the northeast, has a blocked range opening and a former alcove. An open-well staircase, evidently from the 18th century, has a covered balustrade. Note the similarities between the stonework on the north face of Bank House and the sandstone portion of the garden wall at No. 16 White Friars.