Barclays Bank

Barclays Bank, located at number 30 on Newport Pagnell High Street, is a bank building dating from 1870, designed for the local banking firm of Bassett Son & Harris by an unknown architect. It is constructed of red brick with polychrome brick and stone decorations, featuring a stone plinth with quatrefoil openings. The building has a pitched slated roof with lateral and axial chimney stacks adorned with dentil bands.

The design is symmetrical and reflects the Gothic Revival style, comprising two storeys and seven windows. The entrances are located in the end bays, each framed by a stone doorcase with paired colonettes and intricately carved capitals, supporting a gable topped with a fleur-de-lis finial and an inset pointed arch featuring a trefoil motif. The wooden doors have herringbone panelling, with the left-hand door designed to appear as a single unit with two leaves.

The ground floor features round-arched sash windows with carved capitals that support gauged polychrome brick heads. These windows are set behind shallow brick pointed arch arcading, which includes stone impost bands and gauged brick arches with stone hoodmoulds and ballflower springers. Rectangular stone plaques with quatrefoil ventilation openings are placed in the spandrels.

On the first floor, the pointed arched sashes are detailed with stone impost bands and gauged polychrome brick heads, along with a continuous stone sill band that has strips of white brick between the windows. The central window is particularly notable, featuring a two-stage head and a shaped stone hood, dated 1870, with a fleur-de-lis finial and ballflower corbels. The building is topped with a stepped brick cornice that has stone gabled stops and a moulded parapet.

The interior has been altered to meet modern banking needs. Bassett's Bank was taken over by Barclays in 1896, with Barclay & Co having served as Bassett's London agents from the beginning.