National Westminster Bank

The National Westminster Bank, located at 2 and 4 Standishgate in Wigan, is a bank building constructed in 1898 by William Owen for Parrs Bank. It features a transitional French Renaissance style and is built from sandstone ashlar with a slate roof. The building has a long narrow plan that runs at right angles to the street and consists of three storeys and an attic, arranged in three bays.

The exterior includes a polished granite plinth, pilasters on all floors that are variously enriched, dentilled cornices on the ground and first floors, a plain frieze and moulded cornice on the second floor, and a tall pedimented gable at the center with finials. The ground floor is notable for a wide semi-elliptical arched three-light window in the center, supported by two fluted Ionic colonnettes. This window features carved bracket mullions and wide spandrels adorned with olive branch carvings. To the right, there is a square-headed doorway beneath a carved panel with an oculus. The first floor boasts a large bowed balcony with rich foliage decoration, positioned above coupled cross-windows in the center, and flanked by oculi with swan-neck pedimented architraves. The second floor has four cross-windows, while the attic features a two-light mullioned window.

Inside, the bank has a long narrow banking hall with composite pilasters and two large rectangular light wells supported by very large foliated and voluted brackets, although some parts are concealed by 20th-century partitioning.