Former Bank and Bank Manager's House

Former bank and bank manager's house, built in 1881 by James Neill & Son for Leatham, Tew and Company, with 20th- and 21st-century alterations. Now in use as a restaurant and flats. Designed in Queen Anne Revival style.

The building is constructed of red brick with Idle stone dressings and stained and embossed glass windows. The roof is covered in Westmorland slate with internal guttering and inset cast-iron downpipes. Rectangular on plan, it sits under a split-level mansard roof with a rectangular flat-roofed early 20th-century extension to the north.

Exterior

The front (north-west) elevation is two storeys with basement and attic, comprising eleven asymmetrical bays with three dormers. The left-hand six bays formed the original bank and the right-hand five bays the original bank manager's house. The building is of brick with stone dressings to the plinth, string bands, window surrounds and balustraded parapets. The elevations feature carved and moulded brick and stone detailing. The balustrading has brick end plinths and carved finials. Windows are predominantly two-light casements with toplights, some retaining timber glazing bars and leaded painted and embossed stained glass.

The bank's Wood Street elevation is asymmetric. In the second bay is a carved stone doorcase with a pair of tapered Renaissance-style pilasters with Ionic capitals, resting on side-scroll bases and supporting a decorated and moulded consoled entablature and pediment. It contains a 21st-century panelled two-leaf entrance door with a painted fanlight with moulded frame and keystone. A single bay to the left and four bays to the right have eared and shouldered window surrounds with side-scrolled and consoled entablatures (with a fluted and floral frieze) and moulded triangular pediments. A moulded string band forms the window sills and a reeded and moulded band runs between the window toplights. The fourth and fifth bay window entablatures contain the dates '1809' and '1881'. The first floor has six matching windows with a moulded and dentillated cornice forming the window sills, with brick aprons below, moulded stone frames and a small scrolled pediment with enriched shell antefixes to each window. Brick pilasters rise through the second and fourth bays to two pedimented gabled dormer windows, terminating with stone caps and ball finials.

The architecture of the bank manager's house matches that of the bank, with some variation in detailing, but is smaller in scale. It has a symmetrical elevation with a central doorcase with a pair of ornamented square tapered pilasters supporting moulded consoles, an entablature and an elaborate corbelled terracotta door hood enriched with acanthus leaves, beneath a moulded and dentillated cornice. It contains an early 20th-century wood panelled two-leaf entrance door beneath a panelled stone door lintel and margined painted glass overlight. Either side are two windows with moulded stone frames and shallow triangular pediments with small round floral motifs. The first floor has five windows rising from the dentillated and moulded cornice, with shaped brick aprons below and moulded stone frames, each enriched with a floral motif. The central bay has a pair of brick pilasters rising to a pedimented dormer which has a round-headed window, stylised side scrolls and an enriched terracotta entablature.

Attached to the west end of the bank manager's house is a mid-20th-century single-storey red brick extension with similar stone dressings and a roof garden above.

The three-bay left (south-east) return has a canted left-hand bay in alignment with Silver Street and stylistically matches the bank's front elevation. New brickwork below the central ground-floor window marks the position of an infilled 20th-century doorway. Between the second and third bays a pair of decorated and moulded stone and brick pilasters rise from the reeded string band to a stone chimney stack. The first floor between has an ornamented terracotta plaque with a consoled entablature and swan-neck pediment above an engraved stone sundial. The chimney stack has fluted, dentillated and ball-moulded stonework and attached to its face is an eared and shouldered stone plaque with carved garlands and foliage around a circular monogram panel engraved with the letters 'L T & Co'. Above the plaque is a dentillated and consoled entablature (with the dates 1809-1881) and a moulded triangular pediment. The balustraded parapet returns from the front elevation.

The rear (south-west) elevation faces the George and Crown Yard and its four south-east bays form the bank. The two southern bays stylistically match the front elevation but with a blind ground floor and two first-floor windows. Directly to the left the stone-capped elevation is set back, supported by a low canted stone-capped wall, and it has two stone-quoined ground-floor banking hall windows (boarded in 2021), each sharing a stone pilaster jamb with sills supported on small stone brackets. Above is a group of three segmental arched window surrounds (with stone sills and lintels), comprising a window of two one-over-one sashes with flanking narrow one-over-one sashes. To the right is a similar group of two windows and between them is a shaped Dutch gable with a shortened chimney stack. The bank manager's house has a wide 21st-century glazed entrance and western two-pane window all set within a 21st-century pilaster shopfront and to the left a 21st-century apartment door. Its first floor has a keystone arched stair window with a brick roll-moulded surround, a stone lintel and hoodmould and margin-framed embossed glass window. To its right is a segmental arched window with a similar surround and one-over-one sash. A shaped Dutch gable with chimney stack rises between them.

The right (north-west) return comprises the single-storey ground-floor 20th-century brick extension which adjoins number 5 Wood Street. The building's first-floor windows are concealed behind a roof garden. An ornamented external brick chimney rises to a stone pedimented stack with an adjacent late 20th-century flat-roof attic dormer.

Interior

The bank entrance retains a mosaic wall panel with the text 'L T & Co / 1809' set in a circular and octagonal frame and a painted glass fanlight with a decorative fretwork grill. The wall between the 19th-century public entrance and the partners' lobby beyond has been removed but the extent of the public entrance is defined by a coffered ceiling with a dentillated and moulded cornice with a floral frieze and corner stops, and a central ceiling rose. To the rear of the former partners' lobby are a late 20th-century elevator and adjacent staircase, which rises to the first floor. The former partners' room in the east corner has late 19th-century moulded window surrounds and a similar coffered ceiling and cornice as the adjacent public entrance. The south-east corner chimney breast has been partially punched through with a late 20th-century doorway into the former consulting room, now utilitarian restroom and lavatory.

The ground-floor banking hall (now restaurant in 2021) is of two dates. The width of the original 19th-century banking hall is marked by four large windows with moulded surrounds facing Wood Street. These are flanked by early 20th-century neo-Greek pilasters and moulded capitals either side. A separate strong room has a Chubb and Sons safe door in the southern corner. The original north-west wall has been opened up, supported on Doric columns and pilasters, to extend the neoclassical early 20th-century banking floor into the former bank manager's house. The 19th-century former banking hall has an inserted (2021) dropped and coffered ceiling and early 21st-century ornamental wall plaques. The early 20th-century extension into the bank manager's house has an early 20th-century moulded and dentillated square coffered ceiling with a metope and triglyph wall frieze to the east and west walls. The former house entrance at the northern end of the room forms an entrance from Wood Street. A wide 21st-century glazed entrance has been inserted from the George and Crown Yard. The north-west cross wall has three doorways to ancillary spaces and a 21st-century kitchen, which extends into the 20th-century utilitarian single-storey extension.

The basement stair accesses an early 20th-century basement vaults (bullion room) of two reinforced concrete strong rooms with glazed tiles. Three substantial safe doors by Chubb and Sons and Thompsons remain in situ alongside other late 20th-century bank doors. It is now (2021) used as a restaurant and a kitchen, with utilitarian lavatories and store cupboards.

The first floor is now divided into offices at the southern end and four apartments accessed from the original spine corridor (now partitioned by safety and security doors). The south corner room (former ledger room) remains whilst the former drawing room in the east corner is subdivided (2021) as an office and store room. The office is accessed through a 20th-century doorway punched through the 19th-century firebreast and has a wide alcove. The corresponding alcove in the store room has been infilled with a 21st-century stud wall and a door. The spine corridor retains a 19th-century wide arched stair bridging the varying floor levels between the bank and bank manager's house and there are two flats above and below the stair. The corridor has been extended to the full length of the building and at its northern end is an elevator, store cupboard, L-shaped stair down to the external apartment entrance (onto the George and Crown Yard) and a straight stair up to the attic. Contiguous to the central 19th-century corridor stair is a 21st-century attic stair to an attic flat and store rooms. All the visible first-floor windows (2021) have moulded window surrounds.

The attic is divided into a flat, adjoining L-shaped corridor and store room, and two large attic store rooms with late 20th-century banking doors, square-cut mansard roof timbers, two late 20th-century elevator motor rooms and an eastern access hatch to the roof parapet.