65 Westgate (formerly Bank and Banker’s House)

Townhouse and bank built about 1785, converted to retail use in the late 1880s. The building occupies a burgage plot and is constructed of brick with the front elevation partially rendered. The roof is Welsh slate, with replacement roofing to the service range.

The plan extends two rooms deep from the street frontage with a central staircase linking the upper two floors. The street elevation extends eastward over a carriage arch through to the rear yard. An attached service range runs along the western side of the rear yard, contemporary with the street frontage building and terminating to the south with an early 19th-century warehouse. The ground floor of the street frontage building has been knocked through into the service range, and the first floor of the service range appears to have been reconfigured. The upper two floors of the frontage building retain their original principal domestic layout with central staircase and room divisions largely unaltered.

The Westgate elevation presents three storeys and three bays with a slightly stepped-back bay to the east incorporating a carriage arch. It features a plinth, first-floor sill band, and dentilated cornice with a blocking course concealing the low-pitched hipped roof. The set-back bay is unrendered but painted brick with a basket arch for the carriage entrance and blind windows to both first and second floors. The three main bays are rendered and painted. The central bay comprises a two-storey canted projection with first-floor windows framed by Tuscan columns supporting a frieze with embossed ornamentation. The dentilated cornice above the frieze supports a stone balustrade with urn-shaped balusters enclosing a second-floor balcony. Ground-floor openings are round-arched, with the canted bay's front face containing the door with fanlight, all with replaced joinery. Upper windows are sashes; those outside the canted bay sit within architraves with block corbels at first-floor level and eared surrounds at second-floor level. The second-floor windows are shorter.

The White Horse Yard elevation at the rear extends two bays into the yard and presents unornamented exposed red brick. Ground-floor openings have been blocked but originally comprised a pair of round-arched windows with a round-arched former entrance to the right. Above, window openings contain segmental-arched heads with mainly multi-paned sashes, some set flush in the openings and others recessed. A single four-flued chimney stack rises to the roof, and a hemispherical glazed lantern tops the structure, lighting the main staircase. Stepped back and extending south is the two-storey, five-bay service range considered contemporary with the street frontage building, with altered and blocked ground-floor openings and first-floor windows matching those of the rear elevation. Its roofing is replaced. Attached to its south side is a 20th-century flat-roofed link building connecting to a run of 19th-century warehouses extending further south.

The interior retains its original staircase set in a semi-circular stairwell linking the first and second floors and top lit via the hemispherical skylight. The stairs are cantilevered with a closed string and turned balusters supporting a moulded timber handrail. The upper two floors retain other period features including joinery and plasterwork, though fireplaces have been lost.