Barclays Bank

Barclays Bank, built in 1901, is located on Parliament Street in York. It was designed by Edmund Kirby. The building is constructed of red brick in English and stretcher bonds, with a polished granite plinth. Terracotta and moulded brick are used for bands and decorative details, and the steep roof features Westmorland slates, a half-conical cross-gable to Parliament Street, flat-topped dormer windows, and paired brick stacks.

The front facing Parliament Street has two main storeys and an attic, with seven bays. The first floor is articulated by diagonally placed pilasters resting on stepped corbels. Centrally, a round-arched doorcase features three-quarter round columns with stiffleaf necking and moulded capitals, beneath a cusped canopy with intricately carved foliage. Double doors replace the originals, and are accessed by stone steps. Ground floor windows are set within hollow chamfered architraves, topped by foliate hoodmoulds. The right-hand windows are narrower and have carved leaf fronds in their architraves. Above the door is a four-light oriel window, extending downwards to form the canopy. To the left is a semicircular oriel resting on large moulded corbels, with three windows separated by flat pilasters. All windows have ovolo-moulded mullions and transoms, with architraves ornamented with Tudor flower and foliage. A band of moulded panels runs beneath the windows, bordered by carved carp, chrysanthemums and lozenges. A heavily moulded cornice sits above a frieze of halved sunflowers, and leads to a parapet featuring blind traceried panels, broken by pilaster heads. Rainwater goods terminate in lion mask corbels, flowing into moulded hoppers and square-section fall pipes shaped to match the plinth.

The front facing Ousegate has a recessed entrance on the right, beneath an elliptical arch supported by several orders on elaborate tapering corbels, decorated with leaf tendrils. The detailing repeats that of the Parliament Street front, including lion mask rainwater heads at the base of the doorcase corbels. The interior was not inspected.