13-16 Market Place

Former bank, constructed in around 1876 to the designs of Frederick William Albury of Albury and Brown.

MATERIALS: the street-facing, west elevation is of ashlar Bath Stone with pink granite and Portland Stone embellishments. The roof covering over the street-facing range is slate. The later rear extensions are of red brick and render.

PLAN: 13-16 Market Place comprises a principal, street-facing volume of three storeys with projecting outer bays. To the rear (east) are a series of one- and two-storey extensions, all of which are rectangular in plan.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation of 13-16 Market Place presents Italianate proportions and embellishments, with the outer bays framed on each storey by corner pilasters. At ground-floor level, these outer bays each contain an entrance doorway topped with a fan-shaped overlight and are set into rusticated concave jambs. Both doorways are framed by pilasters with tall plinths, pink granite shafts, and geometric circular capitals. They support heavy entablatures with cornices that also function as the cills of the first-floor windows. The centre bay of the ground floor contains two round-headed windows set into channelled rustication.

The first-floor windows are all tripartite, plate-glass sashes topped by decorative lintels and side pilasters with relief panel carvings and foliate capitals. The windows of the centre bay support an enriched entablature and have stone pilaster mullions. The tripartite plate-glass fenestration is continued in the northern and southernmost bays of the second storey, with the centre bay instead containing paired plate-glass sashes set into architraves. The flanking pilasters of the outer bays continue the circular motif of the ground floor in their capitals, and enriched lintels also top these outer windows.

At its apex, the building features a heavy modillion cornice that supports a Portland Stone balustrade with ball finials crowning the corners of the outer bays. The gable/pitched roof slopes east-west, with the east slope containing three skylights just below the roof ridge.

The first and second floors of the rear, east elevation are red brick and respectively feature two and three bays of fenestration. The entire rear of the building comprises a series of one- and two-storey, C20 extensions, mostly with felt roofing. The north elevation of these extensions is white-rendered.