Former bank, with attached verandah and former banking hall

This is a commercial building that originally housed a bank, now used as three shops with offices above. It was built in the 1890s and 1892 by E.W. Johnson, and converted into a bank in 1897 by Sydney Ingham for the Manchester and County Bank Ltd, with later alterations. The building is constructed of red sandstone with a mansard roof covered in green slate, and is designed in a Jacobean style.

The building has a rectangular four-unit plan (now three units) running parallel to the street. The ground floor has been altered with 20th-century shop fronts, except for number 431, which is framed by carved pilasters. Above the attached verandah, each bay features a frieze with a carved panel; the panel above the towered bay displays raised lettering reading “MANCHESTER & COUNTY BANK LTD”, flanked by small shields, while the others have free strapwork decoration.

The tower has semi-octagonal tourelles framing a tall, canted oriel window on the second floor, with mullion-and-transom windows, a moulded cornice, and a pilastered parapet. Above this is a pedimented upstand containing a keyed oculus and a steeply-pitched pavilion roof with cresting and finials.

The main range has slender tourelles to each bay, large canted bay windows on the first floor with mullion-and-transom casements, and tall Dutch-gabled dormers with cross-windows. The attached four-bay verandah features slender cast-iron columns and delicately foliated open-work brackets supporting a curved glazed roof.

The original banking hall, located to the rear and accessed via a passage to the right, has been converted into a restaurant and retains much of its original opulent decoration.

The building forms a group with the verandah attached to numbers 393-421 to the left, and with numbers 433-453 to the right. The verandah is part of the unifying architectural feature that characterizes Lord Street.