School Of Violin Making

The building is a former bank and manager's house, now the School of Violin Making, dating from 1887. Designed by Watson Fothergill for the Nottingham & Notts Bank, the tower was reduced in height in 1957, and the building was converted to its current use around 1975. Constructed of red brick with blue brick, terracotta, and stone dressings, it has gabled and hipped plain tile roofs. The building is a notable example of the Italian Gothic Revival style.

The central two-storey banking hall features a rockfaced chamfered plinth, string courses, stepped pilasters, and a coped balustrade that extends to the right and forms a balcony to the tower. It contains three full-height transomed windows with shafts and panel tracery. The four-stage tower to the right includes string courses and a pyramidal roof with bracketed eaves on corbels. The ground floor of the tower has a round-headed recess with a hood mould containing two doors with a trumeau and double flanking shafts, with a graduated triple light above. Above this are a shouldered sash and another sash opening onto the balcony. The bell stage also features round-headed recesses with hood moulds, each containing three round-headed plain sashes with shafts.

To the left of the tower is the manager’s house and offices, characterised by a plinth, string courses, a modillion eaves cornice, cogged eaves, and iron ridge crests. The three-storey front has a three-window range, with a central cross-mullioned window flanked by single square, cross-mullioned oriels, the window to the right being smaller and simpler. Above are three double and one triple round-headed plain sashes with shafts on corbels. A central, shouldered door is flanked by a three-light sash and a pair of similar two-light windows; the shafts of these windows support the oriel above. A tiled canopy and stone lintel mark the entry door on the far left.

The banking hall's interior is polychrome, featuring a coved, panelled ceiling on corbels. A central polychrome stone fireplace with a tiled overmantel on brackets is situated on the entrance side, alongside a moulded round-headed double recess with a granite pier and a segment-headed doorway with half-glazed doors. The opposite end features three doorways and a stone and glazed brick fireplace inscribed "Estd. 1834," with three tall windows on either side. The open well dogleg staircase has a moulded handrail and unusual turned, cruciform balusters. Corridors on each floor incorporate pedimented doorcases, while the main first-floor offices feature cornices and more elaborate doorcases, including a single Tudor arched tiled fireplace. This building represents a virtually intact example of the distinctive architectural style of Watson Fothergill.