153, North Street

No. 153 North Street is an early 20th-century bank building in Brighton, constructed from stone with a mansarded slate roof. The building has a rectangular shape and is positioned on a corner, featuring a five-window range on the North Street side and a four-window return, with a single-window range on the chamfered corner. It stands two storeys tall above a basement and is designed in the Italianate style.

The main entrance to the banking hall is located in the corner range and has a flat arch, supported by a pair of volute brackets, with decorative swags and escutcheons in a rectangular panel above. Additional swags are found flanking the corner range and at the party walls. There is a second flat-arched entrance at the rear of the return.

The ground floor features round-arched windows, each adorned with a console bracket keystone, and the wall surface is treated with banded rustication. An attached colonnade of the Tuscan order runs across the ground floor, with one bay for each window, and the columns are doubled on either side of the corner entrance and at the party walls. A broad entablature forms a storey band, although it is partly obscured by a late 20th-century sign fascia.

On the first floor, each window is flat arched with an architrave and pediment, except for the corner window, which has a double architrave. The corner range also features shallow banded rustication, and quoin strips are present at the party walls. The continuous entablature has a projecting mutule cornice topped by a balustraded parapet, with stacks located at the party walls.

The interior has not been inspected. This bank is part of a group of early 20th-century commercial buildings on North Street, which includes Nos 155, 163, and Nos 166-169, known as The Norwich Union Insurance House.