Former HSBC Bank

Former HSBC Bank, Number 31 Granby Street

A former bank building constructed between 1872 and 1874, designed by Joseph Goddard of Leicester for the Leicestershire Bank, with carved detail by Samuel Barfield of Leicester. The building has undergone mid and late twentieth-century additions and alterations. It is constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings and Welsh slate roofs, and is designed in the French Gothic Revival style.

The Granby Street frontage presents the principal banking hall, which is two storeys tall plus basement, occupying three bays. The elevation features a plinth, string courses, an enriched modillion cornice, and a pointed arched pierced balustrade. Three tall cross-mullioned windows dominate the facade, each with quatrefoil pierced pointed arched heads and hood moulds, set within panels with dentillated heads and divided by pilasters. Flat-headed basement openings sit below. At the corner is a single-storey entrance feature with matching detailing and a low parapet, incorporating a pointed arched doorway with hoodmould, cusped opening, and double shafts. To the right of this is a two-light pointed arched window with a central shaft. The left return to Bishop Street features a similar doorway, flanked to its left by a similar four-light window. Both doorways retain original wrought iron gates, with matching linked railings extending across the Granby Street front and the first five bays of the Bishop Street front. Above the corner stands a rectangular tower set diagonally, with modillion cornice, pierced balustrades, and a very steep pitched pyramidal roof with modified crest. On the first floor, a semicircular stone bow window with six lights and enriched parapet provides further architectural emphasis.

The Bishop Street frontage incorporates a plinth, string course, cornice, and balustrade with quatrefoils. Dormers with coped gables and traceried recesses are distributed across the elevation. A recessed entrance bay contains two windows with a doorway and overlight to the right, above which sits a sham balustrade and a window with shafts to the transom and pointed arch with tracery and hood mould. To the left is a two-light window with relieving arch, and above it a two-light window with similar arched detailing.

Right of the entrance bay is a four-bay section, two storeys plus basement and attics, containing four two-light windows on each floor beneath segmental relieving arches. The upper floor windows feature panelled aprons and pointed arches with hood moulds. Left of the entrance bay is a section with two similar three-light windows on each floor. Each section has two dormers, three lights to the right and two lights to the left. Further left is a recessed bay, two storeys plus attics, with two windows per floor beneath segmental relieving arches, and a three-light dormer above.

A projecting corner bay to the left displays a similar three-light window on each floor, the upper window with cusped heads, both under segmental relieving arches, beneath a steep pitched pyramidal roof with dormer of two lights.

The frontage to Town Hall Square spans three bays, with similar three-light windows to the right and less elaborate cross-mullioned windows to the left. This frontage is substantially enclosed by an original boundary wall with plinth, panelling, and coping, and a pair of square gatepiers with ball finials. Later twentieth-century single-storey additions fill a former courtyard to the rear.

Interior

The outstanding full-height banking hall, rendered internally, measures six by three bays and is divided by pilasters into pointed arched recesses. The long sides are blank, whilst the short sides each contain three windows with elaborately patterned stained glass, possibly not original, with sill and impost bands and cornices. On the west side, a red sandstone arcade features moulded segmental arches springing from square piers with corner shafts and foliage capitals.

The roof is an elaborate cross-beamed clerestorey design with traceried lights and arcading above the girder beam, incorporating queen post trusses with curved braces. Arch braces spring from granite wall shafts set on corbels bearing shields. The original counter front remains in situ, as do several multi-panelled doors with moulded doorcases. Ground floor offices have been combined and refitted in the late twentieth century. An open well staircase with stick balusters and chamfered square newels with ball finials serves the upper floors. Ancillary rooms, some combined or divided, retain cornices and patterned stained glass, with one panelled matchboard ceiling preserved. The attics contain some exposed trusses with cast iron shoes and tie rods. The basement is constructed with brick jack arches on riveted iron girders and segmental brick vaults.