Barclays Bank And Barclays Bank Chambers

This building, originally a town hall and market house, now serves as a bank and surgery. It was constructed in 1718 and likely underwent internal alterations in the mid to late 18th century. Built of red brick with painted sandstone dressings, it features a two-span plain tile roof. The double-depth plan includes moulded stone plinth, chamfered quoins, wide brick pilaster strips, a stone plat band, a moulded stone cornice that projects over the pilasters, and a parapet with chamfered stone coping (rebuilt to the front with plain coping). Brick stacks are present in the valley and as an integral brick end stack on the rear range, along with a pair of cowlings to the rear ridge.

The building is two storeys with a gable-lit attic. The main front has three bays, with 15-pane glazing bar sashes on the first floor, painted stone cills, and gauged-brick heads with raised keystones. The ground floor features a three-bay round-arched arcade with stumpy Tuscan columns, moulded architraves, and raised keystones. Two left-hand bays have inserted 20th-century glazing. An open arch to the right creates a porch, leading to ground-floor access and stairs to the first floor. The left return front displays the plat bands and two bays with 15-pane glazing bar sashes and keystones, with blocked ground-floor arcade and inserted windows. The right return front has a rendered ground floor, a plat band, a first-floor glazing bar sash with a keystone, and small, wooden two-light attic casements; the left casement has a segmented head.

The rear elevation, with a rendered ground floor, features a wooden eaves cornice with a cyma reversa moulding, shaped stone kneelers, and parapeted gable ends. First-floor windows are 15-pane glazing bar sashes with stone cills and stone lintels. The building’s history is documented in R.B. James’s Whitchurch - A Short History (1979), page 6.