Former Hull Banking Company Bank, 32 Silver Street

Former Hull Banking Company Bank

This former bank, now in use as a cafe and bar, was built between 1869 and 1870 to designs by William Botterill and Son. It is constructed in Italianate style and has been altered in the late 20th century.

The three-storey building with basement is built in ashlar with a hipped slate roof and four offset end and ridge stacks. The plan is polygonal.

The canted south-east entrance bay features an enriched and moulded round-arch canopy with a large acanthus scroll keystone and a heavily moulded and dentillated cornice, carried on large ornamented and moulded brackets and grey granite columns with Corinthian capitals standing on moulded square stone plinths. Within the canopy is a chamfered flat-headed doorway, accessed by stone steps, with the words 'BANK' inscribed on the lintel, a six-panel double door and a semi-circular overlight (boarded as of 2022). Both floors above have a moulded round-arched window with an ornamented keystone and spandrels, flanked by stone Corinthian columns supporting a moulded entablature and heavily moulded and projecting cornice. The first-floor window has a balustrade. The second-floor window is shorter with evenly spaced moulded brackets to the eaves cornice.

The six-bay left return to Silver Street is articulated with a plinth and pilasters dividing the bays, with a pair of pilasters between the second and third bays, and heavily projecting cornices to each floor. The ground floor has a rusticated and moulded plinth with rusticated pilasters with Corinthian imposts and panelling above to the moulded and dentillated cornice. Each bay has a round-arched window with scrolled hoodmould, panelled spandrels and apron, with modern single-light panes and arched fanlights. A recessed 20th-century basement doorway lies under the left-hand window, with elliptical-arched and keystoned basement openings under the other windows. The first floor has a blocking course with low pedestals supporting panelled Corinthian pilasters rising to a moulded entablature and cornice. There are balustrades fronting the six round-arched moulded windows, each with moulded imposts, heads and keystones. The second floor has a similar arrangement but with paired fluted composite pilasters separating shorter round-arched windows, and features an enriched panelled frieze with moulded, modillion eaves cornice with pairs of scrolled brackets. Both upper floors have two-light casements with arched fanlights.

The five-bay right return to Lowgate has similar fenestration. The ground floor has four windows with basement openings beneath, and a recessed entrance to the right-hand bay with steps to a chamfered doorway with an enriched stone lintel, a moulded six-panel door and a large two-paned round-headed fanlight.

The north and west elevations adjoin adjacent buildings.

The interior features enriched arcaded wall panels and a moulded cornice. It has a cross-beam ceiling with guilloche and flower decoration and polygonal ceiling panels, carried on Corinthian columns. There is an off-centre blind saucer dome.