10-18, Foregate Street

Bank and shop on the corner of Foregate Street and St John's Street in Chester. The west part was built in 1896 to a design by T M Lockwood, and the east part was built in 1911 by W T Lockwood for the National Provincial Bank of England (now National Westminster Bank). The building is constructed of buff sandstone and timber frame with plaster panels, with grey slate roofs.

The exterior presents a mixed architectural character. The west part and the face to St John's Street both rise to three storeys plus attics, while the east part has two storeys and an attic. The ground storey and entrance bay to Foregate Street are finished in stone in the Classical manner of a 17th-century country builder. The upper storeys are timber-framed in late 16th to early 17th-century style, with close studding, shaped panel-tops, some shaped panels, and herringbone braces.

On the Foregate Street front, the first storey features a canted corner doorway with panelled double doors, a wood case, and a concave ceramic overpanel inscribed "NATIONAL PROVINCIAL BANK OF ENGLAND" in raised capitals. A moulded plinth runs along this level. The banking hall displays five hardwood windows, each with a large lower pane, a transom, and two upper panes. The west window has a shouldered architrave; the others are arranged in pairs with Ionic pilasters and cornice. Further east is a slightly recessed bay containing two single-pane windows in shouldered architraves. An entrance bay follows, with doors now replaced in a round-arched opening with shouldered architrave and projecting keystone carrying a blank panel between two putti. East of this, the ground storey becomes plainer, with a panel bearing the raised shield of the National Provincial Bank, an altered window, and a camber-arched doorway with shouldered architrave, triple keystone, and broken pediment. The shopfront to No.18 is of 20th-century date.

The second storey above the banking hall has two shallow canted five-light partly-leaded oriels with moulded mullions and two transoms. The recessed bay contains a three-light mullioned and transomed casement. The entrance bay features a stone mullioned and transomed casement with moulded sill and curved broken pediment. Two large four-light mullioned windows east of the entrance bay have two transoms and leaded glazing. A canted six-light oriel over the shop has two transoms and leaded glazing, with a one-light transomed window to the west and a similar three-light window to the east.

The third storey, above the banking hall and jettied on ornate brackets, has two canted five-light oriels. The recessed bay contains a flat-roofed three-light mullioned and transomed leaded dormer. The stone entrance bay holds a putto cartouche beneath a four-light mullioned and transomed leaded casement with moulded sill and curved broken pediment beneath a moulded semicircular gable, dated 1911 in a carved wreath. East of the entrance bay are two flat-roofed four-light leaded dormers.

The attic storey above the banking hall features two jettied gables, each with a four-light leaded casement and a small cock-loft window, ornamented bargeboards, and red brick chimneys.

The west face to St John's Street has five windows to the first storey, arranged and detailed as those to the banking hall. A stone-dressed red-brick lateral chimney with blue diapering, dated 1896, stops the return of the front to Foregate Street, which has a two-light partly-leaded window with two transoms to the second storey. South of the chimney, the second storey contains a three-light partly-leaded window with two transoms and a four-light canted oriel with two transoms and some leaded glazing. The third storey has a three-light leaded casement and a four-light mullioned and transomed oriel, with a jettied gable above.

The interior has modern linings that conceal any original features in the publicly accessible parts of the premises.

This building occupies a visually important position at the south-east corner of Foregate Street and St John's Street, closing the south view from Frodsham Street and forming the terminus of the Vernacular Revival frontages in the city centre.