50, Cornhill And Attached Grilles

A former bank and office building dating from 1891-92, designed by Henry Cowell Boyes and built by William Cubitt for Prescott, Dimsdale, Cave, Tugwell and Co., bankers. The building is constructed of polished Aberdeen granite and stone, Portland stone, and brick in English bond. It is four storeys high, with an attic above a basement. The top storey is recessed behind a balustrade.

The main entrances are flat-arched, with the left-hand entrance set within a tall ground-floor arcade of three bays, featuring attached Tuscan columns on high socles and responds. The entrance to the right has a round window overlight, partly obscured by a pediment and spandrels of the arcade and set within a short wall treated as banded rustication. The ground floor has an entablature with a high, broad frieze-sign fascia. A storey band separates the first and second floors, and a sill band marks the attic. The first-floor and attic windows have eared architraves; the lower spandrels of the first-floor windows are decorated with guilloche bands, while the second-floor windows have architraves and entablatures. Heavy balconies are positioned at the second-floor windows. A dentil and modillioned cornice tops the attic, with an urn marking the right party wall and stack behind. Decorative security grilles are affixed to the basement windows.

The banking hall extends to the rear of the site and is as wide as the building itself. It is lit by a glass dome set upon a pilastered, low drum. The walls feature pilasters, panels of Derbyshire alabaster, a Spanish mahogany dado and cornice, and counters of the same hardwood, all original to the design. A panelled gallery runs along the east wall. The entrance vestibule is characterised by pilasters and alabaster facing, and a white marble mosaic floor incorporates inscriptions marking the founding dates of the four banks which merged to form the company: “Cornhill, 1762,” “Threadneedle Street, 1766,” “High Street, Bath, 1770,” and “Corn Street, Bristol, 1750”.

A bronze War Memorial from the First World War is located on the west wall of the vestibule, alongside original design doors. The sub-basement reportedly retains elements of the Roman Wall, which was discovered during the building's original construction and left in situ.