Former Yorkshire Bank

Former bank, dated 1903 and designed for the Yorkshire Penny Bank in Free Classical style.

The Yorkshire Penny Bank was named in 1860, having been initially founded in 1859 as the West Riding Penny Savings Bank by Colonel Edward Akroyd of Halifax as a philanthropic organisation aimed at providing a means of saving for the working classes. Plans for new premises on Market Hill were submitted to the Streets & Buildings Committee on 23 July 1902. The building bears the datestone 1903. In 1924, plans were submitted to extend the bank on Eldon Street with a three-storey extension of five bays. The Yorkshire Penny Bank changed its name to Yorkshire Bank Ltd in 1959. Later the building was used by the Yorkshire Building Society before closing in 2016. It has since been refurbished as commercial premises.

The building is constructed in ashlar stone with a Welsh slate roof. It is a three-storey corner building with three bays to Market Hill, one corner bay, and seven bays to Eldon Street. A plinth and parapets run across both elevations.

The main doorway is positioned in the corner bay and has a small cartouche to the lintel bearing the initials 'Y P B' for Yorkshire Penny Bank. Above the doorway is a first-floor oriel three-light window whose tiled roof extends through the second floor and is surmounted by an enriched plaque bearing the date 1903 in raised numbers. A clock turret rises above this, breaking through the parapet, with a broken segmental pediment supported on tapering pilasters flanking the clock. The clock is by Potts of Leeds and has a circular opal glass dial with black Roman numerals. The first bay of the Market Hill elevation projects slightly and rises as a gabled dormer; the ground-floor window was formerly a doorway. The two large ground-floor windows to the centre and right bays have moulded ashlar frames and aprons with later glazing. The ground-floor frieze displays enriched pedimented cartouches marking the bays. The paired first- and second-floor windows are all square-headed. The first-floor windows in the left-hand bay have shouldered lintels, whilst those to the right have cambered arches above and central colonnettes. On the Eldon Street elevation, bays one, two, six and seven are similarly detailed, whilst bays three, four and five are similar but have first- and second-floor windows in triple groups with pilasters marking the bays and rising into the shaped parapet. The building has tall ashlar and brick stacks.

The interior was not inspected.