Barclays Bank

Barclays Bank, originally a market house, was built in 1821 and incorporates a building from around 1640, which was refronted in the 18th century. The ground floor was enclosed in the 1860s, and it was converted into a bank in 1908. The building was constructed by William Thompson, with William Izod as the builder. It features stucco with ashlar dressings and is two storeys high, displaying a three-window facade with rounded corners at the junction of Bridge Street, along with single-window returns to Wood Street and Henley Street.

The top of the building has a cornice and parapet with a clock tower. The entrance boasts a large doorcase with an impost course, key, and a segmental pediment fanlight above paired three-fielded-panel doors. The windows have sills and were originally round-headed open arches until the 1860s; they now feature three-light transomed wooden glazing, with smaller flanking windows on the returns. The first floor has similar windows. A rainwater head is adorned with a cherub.

The cupola has a square base with canted angles, panelled faces, a four-faced clock, and round-headed openings at the angles, topped with an entablature, a copper cupola, and a wind vane featuring a Shakespeare crest. There is also a three-storey-with-attic, two-window range on Wood Street, built of brick with an internal timber frame and a tiled roof, arranged in a right-angle plan. It has a platt band over the first and second floors and a Dutch gable. The windows feature rubbed brick flat arches above nine-pane horned sashes on the ground floor and twelve-pane horned sashes on the upper floors, while the attic has a window with a two-light leaded casement. There is a well-crafted rainwater head, and some exposed timber-frame is visible on the left return, along with a 20th-century two-storey addition at the rear. Historically, this building served as the market hall of Stratford until 1908, replacing a 16th-century structure, and it occupies a significant site at the corner of Wood Street, Henley Street, and Union Street, enhancing the view up Bridge Street.