NatWest Bank

Bank, c.1902, probably by Horace Cheston and Joseph Craddock Perkin.

MATERIALS: buff-coloured ashlar with grey granite plinth and Welsh slate roofs; stock brick to rear elevations.

PLAN: the building occupies a triangular corner site; the main part is a V-shaped block of two and a half storeys, with the entrance right on the corner facing the High Street. To the right, on Ilford Hill, is a further single-storey range. The original internal layout - now lost - comprised banking hall, waiting room, manager's office and strong room on the ground floor, with domestic accommodation (presumably for the manager) on the upper floors.

EXTERIOR: the style is Edwardian ‘Free Classical’, here a vigorous blend of Jacobean and Italian Mannerist elements. The main part of the building comprises two three-bay wings running back obliquely on either side of a canted corner block. Each wing has two superimposed orders of engaged half-columns with architrave, frieze and cornice. The taller ground floor has a rusticated Doric order above a rock-faced granite plinth, while the first floor has a smaller Ionic order with a diminutive rusticated sub-order forming the window-jambs and mullions. A deep modillion cornice crowns the façade, with a balustrade above; the steep-pitched roof has broad slab-like ridge stacks. The corner element provides the main architectural focus. Here, a big Dutch gable with urns, string-courses and crowning aedicule rises above a polygonal bay window set between two domed polygonal turrets. These are corbelled out at first-floor level, where they appear to force their way up through broken triangular pediments which rest upon the paired columns framing the main entrance. The single-storey outer right-hand wing replicates the ground-floor treatment for a further seven bays, with a secondary entrance at the western end. The plain two-bay, two-storey outer wing on the left-hand side is a mid-C20 extension, and is not included in the listing.

INTERIORS: the banking hall was gutted c.2000, and all original features are now either lost or boxed in. Pursuant to s1(5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the modern fittings in the ground-floor banking area are not of special architectural or historic interest. Other interiors were not inspected (2014).