National Westminster Bank And St Andrews Chambers And Union Bank Chambers

TA2710SE 699-1/12/54

GRIMSBY, CLEETHORPE ROAD (East side), National Westminster Bank and St Andrews Chambers and Union Bank Chambers 09/02/99

II

Includes: National Westminster Bank RIBY SQUARE. Bank and offices. 1899-1900 by HC Scaping for the Union of London and Smiths Bank Limited. Sandstone ashlar facing; red brick to exposed gables and rear. Welsh slate roof. Edwardian Classical style. Rectangular on plan, with canted angle to street corner. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with attic; 4 irregular bays to Riby Square front, 3 irregular bays to Cleethorpe Road front. Moulded plinth, rusticated panels below ground-floor sill string course, rusticated quoins to first floor. Bank entrance has projecting single-storey porch on street corner with balcony above. Entrances to the upstairs offices are in the far left and far right bays on each front. Each entrance has keyed round-arched doorways with rusticated surrounds and panelled double doors, those to the corner and Cleethorpe Road with overlights with geometric-pattern glazing bars. Carved panel above the corner door inscribed "LINCOLN BANK, GRIMSBY BRANCH"; the Cleethorpe Road entrance with a panel inscribed "ST ANDREWS CHAMBERS" and a carved shield dated 1900. The Riby Square door has a 5-pane overlight, a carved panel with cartouche and fronds, inscription "UNION BANK CHAMBERS" and radial fanlight. Between entrances are arcaded sections (7 bays to Cleethorpe Road, 4 bays to Riby Square), with attached Doric columns between windows with plate-glass lower sections and upper sections with glazing bars. Entablature at first-floor level with C20 name-boards. Above the corner porch is a balustraded balcony and a first-floor Venetian window with a tall keystone rising to the eaves. Side bays have tripartite and single sashes in architraves with dripmoulds. All first-floor windows are 6/6 or 4/6 sashes. Deep moulded and modillioned eaves cornice. Prominent downpipes with shaped rainwater-heads. Mansard roof with 6/6 pedimented dormer sashes. Corniced ashlar ridge stacks, coped gables. INTERIOR: retains original features. Banking hall has single octagonal rusticated column with plain-moulded capital, coffered ceiling with modillioned cornice; panelled walls, dado rail, window architraves, wooden chimneypiece inscribed

with date and company cypher; panelled internal porch with brass First World War memorial plaque. St Andrews Chambers entrance hall has good cantilevered staircase with wrought-iron balustrade and swept handrail. Plainer staircase to Union Chambers. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N, Harris J, and Antram N: Lincolnshire: London: 1989-: 342-3; Grimsby - Action for Conservation: Grimsby Borough Planning Department: List of buildings of local architectural or historical interest: Grimsby Borough Council: 1972-1982: NO.95; Ambler RW: Great Grimsby Fishing Heritage: a brief for a trail: Grimsby Borough Council: 1990-: 15-16).

Listing NGR: TA2774210459