54 Parliament Street (former Grindlay's Bank)

Former bank, now offices. Built 1898–9 by Alfred Williams, altered and partly rebuilt 1982–6, and incorporated into a new structure, Richmond House, by Whitfield Associates.

The building is constructed of red brick, Portland stone and grey granite, with a slated mansard roof.

The five-bay, five-storey elevation to Parliament Street is artfully asymmetrical, deploying a Franco-Flemish Renaissance idiom with English Baroque influences, an approach clearly influenced by Sir Richard Norman Shaw's work of a decade earlier at New Scotland Yard. The granite-faced lower storey has rusticated Doric columns supporting a frieze and cornice, with scrolled ironwork including the name 'GRINDLAY & Co.'. The two big round-arched entrances to left and right have Gibbs surrounds and pediments (triangular and supported on columns to the left, segmental on leafy scroll-brackets to the right) and contain decorative iron gates.

Above, the two outer bays are treated as projecting turrets. The left one is square with pedimented Gibbs windows and a complicated double-pedimented aedicule at attic level, while the right one is octagonal and rises into a domed cupola. The middle three bays are of brick, with Gibbs window surrounds in stone; on the first floor these have aprons and open pediments containing scrolls and putti. The third storey is corbelled out as a little gallery, with three stone arches containing further ironwork. The mansard roof sports three big pedimented dormers.

The building was much altered in the 1980s, when the rear part was completely rebuilt, leaving only the Parliament Street façade with a single room's depth behind. The ground floor contains a large banking hall with entrance lobbies to right and left. The upper floors comprise a series of small offices.

The main survival of the ground floor is the banking hall. This has three-quarter height fielded oak panelling with ionic pilasters supporting a pulvinated frieze and a deep cornice. At one end is a large semicircular recess containing a fireplace with a plain marble surround and coloured tiles, with much carved decoration to the arch and overmantel. The panelling also encloses the two entrance lobbies, which have part-glazed double doors with brass handles and kick-plates. The ceiling above has a rich modillion cornice. The surviving front rooms above retain fireplaces in tall Arts and Crafts oak surrounds. The original stair, which had square newels supporting a scrolly wrought-iron balustrade, has been removed; the present stair dates from the 1980s work, as do all the rooms at the back.