Premises Occupied By Lloyd'S Bank

WORCESTER

SO8455SE THE CROSS 620-1/12/600 (East side) 22/05/54 No.4 Premises occupied by Lloyd's Bank

GV II

Bank. 1861-2, with later additions and alterations. C20 range to rear not included. For the Worcester City and County Banking Company Limited. Architect: Elmslie. Cotswold stone ashlar over brick with concealed roof and red granite columns. L-plan, Italian palazzo style. 3 storeys, 5 first-floor windows. Quoins to full height. Cyma reversa moulded plinth. Ground floor has deeply-cut rustication; moulded band over, frieze and cornice which acts as first-floor sill band; cornice over first floor acts as second-floor sill band; cornice over second floor then frieze and modillion cornice; balustrade has bulbous balusters. Central entrance: 2 pairs of Doric columns each pair on shared plinth, frieze with triglyphs and metopes; balustrade over with squared balusters; double 6-panel doors with fanlight, pilasters and cavetto-moulded arch with scroll motif, keystone mask with castellated crown; shields and foliate decoration to spandrels. Windows to either side are 1/1 horned sashes in tooled surrounds and with outer pilasters with depressed panels and cornices on scrolled corbels. First floor: French casements and fanlights with tooled heads and central scrolled keystones in aedicules with 3/4 engaged Doric columns, dentil entablature and foliated spandrels; lower balustrades with bulbous balusters. Second floor: plate glass casements with cambered heads and eared and shouldered architraves with scrolled keystones. Returns: rustication and bands continue. Right return to The Avenue: 4 first-floor windows. Off-centre right shallow bow. Ground floor has similar windows but with three 1/1 sashes to bow and rusticated arches over. Further entrance at left a 2-panel door with blind fanlight and rusticated surround. First floor has casements with fanlights in similar aedicules, except to bow a triple window in dentil pedimented surround. Windows to second floor are similar to those on front facade. INTERIOR: entrance hall retains tile floor; 6-panel double doors with architrave and cornice on acanthus columns. Panelling to walls, frieze with acanthus scrolls. Barrel vaulted ceiling has ribs and panels. Otherwise ground floor has lowered ceiling and not inspected. HISTORICAL NOTE: cost about 14,000. A fine example of a commercial facade in this style. Forms part of a significant roup of listed buildings at this city centre crossroads together with Church of St Nicholas and Nos 20 and 21, The Cross (qqv), together with Nos 11 and 12 Foregate (qqv). It also has good group value with other listed buildings in The Cross including Premises occupied by Costa and the Bradford and Bingley Building Society (qqv), all forming an important visual framework for this entrance to Worcester city centre. Alternative map no: SO 8555 SW. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 331).