Reliance House and Attached Wall, Piers, Railings and Gates to Forecourt is a Grade II listed building in the Medway local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 November 2001. Building society branch, offices.

Reliance House and Attached Wall, Piers, Railings and Gates to Forecourt

WRENN ID
keen-belfry-blackthorn
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Medway
Constituency
Rochester and Strood MP: Lauren Edwards (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
20 November 2001
Type
Building society branch, offices
Address
Reliance House and Attached Wall, Piers, Railings and Gates to Forecourt, Manor Road
OS grid reference
TQ 755 679
Coordinates
51.38308, 0.52161
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Reliance House is a building society branch and offices constructed in 1930, with an architect currently unconfirmed. It is built in a Neo-Georgian style incorporating elements of Egyptian and Art Deco design, and it includes minor alterations from the late 20th century. The rear building, dating from the 1970s, is not considered to have group value. The structure is primarily of brown brick in a Flemish bond pattern, accented with red brick voussoirs and stone dressings, with yellow brick used on much of the side elevations. It is two storeys high and has a window arrangement of 2:4 on each elevation.

The plan features a banking hall on the left ground floor, with a staircase to the right, and offices on the first floor. The front elevation has a projecting centrepiece with a deep cornice, band, and stone pediment, supported on rusticated piers and central columns with Egyptian-inspired capitals featuring acanthus leaves and fluting. A central doorcase has an open pediment, a moulded surround including a tablet inscribed "Reliance House," a surviving original tapering cast iron lantern with decorative leadwork, and oak double doors consisting of three fielded panels each, accessed by three granite steps. The original concertina-type cast iron security gates are still present. Tall round-headed arches flank the door, containing metal glazing bars with a circular pivoting upper panel and brick blank panels below. Small four-light pivoting casements are present on the first floor, with a similar round-headed window on the ground floor left side. The right side features a deep round-headed fanlight with a pivoting circular aperture and an oak doorcase with double doors of three deeply fielded panels.

Attached to the left is a low brick wall with stone coping and eight stone piers capped with shallow pyramids. These piers support cast iron panels, incorporating central gates and a right-side gate, all in a matching pattern. The left side elevation includes a projecting bay with a four-light window similar to that on the front elevation and a round-headed ground floor window. The rest of this elevation is in yellow brick, with two round-headed ground floor windows, three small metal windows, and first-floor windows replaced in the late 20th century within existing openings. The right side features a similar projecting bay and ground floor window to the front, with the remainder of the elevation in yellow brick and windows replaced in the late 20th century within original openings.

Local climate

Reliance House and Attached Wall, Piers, Railings and Gates to Forecourt sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 84% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 23 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 76% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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