Former National Westminster Bank

Former National Westminster Bank

This former bank building dates from around 1907 and was designed by the London architectural practice Dunn and Watson in the Baroque Revival style. It is constructed with a concrete frame and floors, faced with Portland stone and granite, roofed in Westmorland green slate.

The building occupies a corner site at the junction of Silver Street and Land of Green Ginger, with an L-shaped plan featuring an angled south-west blind corner. A two-storey flat-roofed polygonal extension extends northwards from the rear, containing the banking hall.

The main three-storey elevation presents a near-symmetrical front to Silver Street, comprising seven bays. The ground floor displays banded and pulvinated rusticated stone with a dentilated and moulded cornice. A central elaborate keystoned round-arched main banking entrance features a metal fish-scale grilled overlight above a wooden door with moulded cornice and decorated architrave carved with a laurel leaf pattern stopped by floral square stops. The door itself is two-leaf, glazed and panelled, with dentillated borders. To the left are three windows and to the right are two windows and an independent two-stepped doorway. All ground-floor windows contain six-over-nine sash windows and have pulvinated voussoir lintels with a central projecting square stop ornamented with a Celtic knot boss. The independent doorway to the east contains a sculpted blind rectangular overlight with similar decoration and a two-leaf glazed and panelled door providing access to Todd's Entry, a gated alleyway leading to Victoria Chambers. Heavy scrolled and ornamented brackets flank the main banking entrance, supporting a moulded and dentillated cornice and a projecting first-floor balustraded window balcony with moulded handrail.

The first floor contains seven large flat lintel windows with projecting keystones, each with a segmental hood supported on ornate brackets and six-over-six sash windows. The second floor has seven three-over-six sashes with moulded and shouldered window surrounds and decorated sills.

The west return facing Land of Green Ginger comprises six bays with similar detailing but without the central doorway and balcony. A single plain bay to the north contains a three-stepped side door with simple moulded surround and plain window surrounds to upper floors.

The pitched Westmorland green slate roof features a low stone parapet and seven finely detailed chimney stacks. The four street-facing chimneys are ashlar with pilasters supporting sculpted lion heads, moulded coping and shaped chimney pots. The rear three chimneys are of white faience brick. The cornice is elaborately bracketed and moulded, ornamented with eight lion masks.

The interior retains substantial original features. The main public entrance lobby contains a First World War bronze memorial plaque commemorating the 2681 members of banking staff who served and 415 who gave their lives. This leads into a well-preserved contemporary banking hall featuring pilasters and square panelled and dentillated columns supporting ornate plasterwork beams with honeycomb moulding decoration between them. The banking hall extends into the two-storey rear extension and contains two hemispherical domes of different sizes. A central square opening between supporting beams carries the larger dome on pendentives, decorated with plaster ribbing, foliage scroll frieze and a wooden dome frame with gradually diminishing trapezoid glazing. The banking hall and adjacent former office rooms retain plaster panelling to the walls with polished pine panelled wainscot, polished pine panelled doors with moulded architraves (some bearing brass plaques) and wooden window architraves with shaped curtain boxes. At least one Edwardian wrought iron staircase with wooden handrail remains in place. First-floor coving is retained above suspended ceilings in former offices, with some pitcher rails remaining in situ.