248, High Street

This building, originally a public house and now a bank, was likely constructed in the 1890s and converted around 1980. It is built of brick with stone dressings and has lateral chimney stacks. The architectural style is Free Renaissance. The building has a double-depth plan.

The exterior is three storeys high with a three-window front. It is symmetrical, featuring depressed three-centred arches at ground-floor level, set beneath a cornice which steps out over moulded panels incorporating square urns. Transom and sill bands run across the first and second floors, topped by a cornice and parapet with balustrades over the outer bays. A raised central round-arched gable contains an oculus. The right-hand side has double doors, while the central windows have Venetian glazing bars with small-paned upper lights, separated by terms carved with grotesque heads. A first-floor oriel is canted and has a pedimented cornice and balcony. Upper-floor windows have transoms and mullions, fitted with 20th-century plate glass.

The interior has been altered, but retains decorative ceramic tiles to either side of the outer bays, which were formerly pub lobbies. The building formerly contained mahogany pub fittings, frosted glass bar fronts, polychromatic mosaic flooring, and tiled saloon and public bars. It represents an extremely complete public house front, built in a favoured late 19th-century style.