Bank House

Bank House

Former Bank of England regional headquarters building, constructed 1969-71 by Building Design Partnership. A 5-storey building plus basement, the structure is in-situ reinforced concrete with polished grey Cornish granite and bronze cladding, designed in an inverted ziggurat form.

The building has three principal elevations: east facing King Street, north facing Park Place, and south facing York Place. The plan is approximately square with a central lightwell serving the two uppermost floors. A vehicular passageway and parking area cut through the ground floor on the west side. Two main stairs serving ground to fourth-floor levels are located towards the western end on the north and south sides.

The inverted ziggurat form was designed to provide each floor level with equal light. The ground-floor walls follow the building line, but the first floor recesses to accommodate a grit-blasted concrete deck or pedway located on the north and east sides. This deck was a planning requirement intended to receive an elevated pedestrian walkway system that was never constructed; the north-east corner of the deck has since been removed. The underside incorporates recessed lighting. Above the recessed first floor, the upper-floor levels successively cantilever outwards to the fourth floor, which regains the building line of the ground floor.

The ground floor has windows on the north elevation and northern end of the east elevation, set within simple dark-bronze frames flush with the granite cladding and formed into tall projecting bays or modules. Identical windowless projecting modules are present on the ground floor of the south elevation and remaining east elevation. Upper floors have similarly styled window modules, with a stairwell on the south side lit by two full-height vertical window bands. All windows have bronze tinted glass.

The main entrance is at the centre of the ground-floor east elevation and has been altered from its original recessed design; the recess is now infilled with modern glazing and a new lighting canopy added above. A secondary staff entrance on the north elevation consists of four tall doorways recessed into the projecting ground-floor bays with bronze glazed doors and overlights. Two similarly-styled doorways at the base of the south stairwell form fire exits. Vehicular entrances at the western end of both north and south sides have bronze-coloured roller shutters. First-floor level doorways on the north and east sides, originally intended as additional pedway entrances, are now windows.

The main entrance foyer walls and floor were originally lined with granite but the space has since been heavily altered and modernised. The tenants' entrance foyer on the north side off Park Place retains its granite-lined walls and floor.

Two main honed-granite stairs on the north and south sides have narrow open wells and painted-metal horizontal rail balustrades surmounted by timber handrails. The north stair was originally for exclusive use by commercial tenants on the uppermost floors. An early 21st-century steel open-well stair has been inserted on the eastern side between the first and fourth floors.

The first-floor former banking hall is now a meeting room and office lobby space, double height with walls clad in Cornish granite. Originally top-lit, the space featured a sculptured aluminium ceiling by Alan Boyson and a glass panel engraved with an image of Britannia by Warwick Hutton; both have since been removed. The original counter has also been removed and openings in the north and south walls have been enlarged. Single-storey meeting room pods have been inserted into the space. The remainder of the building's interior comprises plain open-plan and partitioned spaces. The basement, still occupied by the Bank of England as a cash centre, was not inspected.