The Corn Exchange And Former Savings Bank

The Corn Exchange and former Savings Bank, built in 1863, is located on Gloucester Street in Great Faringdon. This building features rubble stone construction with ashlar dressings. It consists of a large one-storey hall with a two-storey front range facing the Cornmarket, all covered by a plain tiled hipped roof. Designed in the Gothic style, the asymmetrical front range includes two windows to the Cornmarket and a heavily moulded doorway to the left. The doorway has a Gothic arch with a quatrefoil opening in the tympanum and an inscribed scroll above. There are statues on each side of the buttress with small carved canopies above them. A three-sided canted oriel window, dated 1863 on its moulded base, is also present. The window heads are cusped trefoils with quatrefoil top-lights, and there is a crow-stepped small gable above with a Gothic attic window under a hood-mould. A copper weathervane tops the structure.

The right side of the building, including the adjacent canted corner bay and the first bay of the Gloucester Street elevation, features similar architectural details with two-light windows on each floor. The ground floor windows are set under segmental arches with carved bosses over the central mullions, while the first floor windows have carved capitals on the central shafts, along with cusped heads and quatrefoils above.

Inside the main hall, there are five windows with buttresses in between. The long triple windows have dividing shafts and carved capitals, shouldered heads, and carved bosses above the shafts. A large plate traceried west window is also a notable feature. Attached to the west side is the former Savings Bank, which is a lower one-storey range separated from the hall by a doorway with a shouldered head, hood mould, and a carved scroll that reads 'Faringdon Savings Bank 1863'. Above this doorway is a crenellated wall featuring the monogrammed plaque 'FTSB 1818'. The Savings Bank has a stone tiled roof and includes two large three-sided bays with mullion and transom windows, as well as crenellated parapets adorned with quatrefoil panels and blank shields.