1 and 2 Market Place

Former bank, now hotel and restaurant. Built in around the 1870s and extended in the late C19.

MATERIALS: the ground floor of the street-facing elevation has ashlar masonry and polished pink and black granite dressings. The upper floors are of red brick. There are slate-covered roofs.

PLAN: a four-storey building, originally with a banking hall to the ground floor and offices above but now utilised as a restaurant and hotel.

EXTERIOR: the main, west street-facing elevation is five bays wide and three-storeys high with an additional attic storey to the northern three bays. It is richly embellished with classical detailing and ornament. The ground floor is of ashlar masonry with each bay separated by rusticated pilasters resting on a plinth and pedestals and supporting an entablature with a plain freeze and dentilled cornice. It comprises, from left to right: the main entrance with an elaborate granite doorcase; paired plate-glass windows separated by an engaged granite column; two further plate glass windows; and a round-arched entrance to a service passage with decorative wrought ironwork set within the arch and carrying the letters LLOYDS BANK CHAMBERS. The doorcase to the main entrance has a moulded black granite rounded arch of two orders resting on pilasters and framed by a pink granite architrave with reeded pilasters supporting an entablature with a plain frieze, dentilled cornice and richly-carved segmental pediment. The upper floors are of high-quality red brick with much decorative carving. Moulded pilasters rise through the first and second floors, separating each bay and supporting an entablature with a plain frieze and elaborate modillion cornice. There is a similar arrangement of windows to each floor with tripartite one-over-one sash windows to the first, third and fifth bays, paired one-over-one sashes to the second bay and single sashes to the fourth bay. The first-floor windows are each set in a carved brick architrave and have an entablature enriched with foliate carving. The paired windows to the second bay are separated by an elaborately carved pilaster. The second-floor windows are also set within architraves but do not have an entablature except for the paired sashes to the second bay which are decorated with a swan-neck pediment above ornamental swags. This bay rises above the rest with an attic storey that has a Diocletian window, moulded pilasters and triangular pediment; the attic storey to the flanking bays is set well back behind iron railings and cannot be seen from the street.