Midland Bank

The Midland Bank, located at Nos. 49 and 51 Corn Street in Bristol, is a bank building constructed in 1922 by Whinney, Son and Austin Hall. It is designed in the Late Edwardian Baroque style and features Portland ashlar with a grey granite plinth and a slate mansard roof. The building has a double-depth plan and consists of three storeys, an attic, and a basement, with a three-window range.

Situated on a corner site, it includes a one-window corner bay and a seven-window left return. Architectural details include a moulded plinth and sill band, a banded ground floor leading to a moulded plat band, and banded in antis pilasters on the first floor. The right-hand section has a one-window banded section with Corinthian attached columns supporting an entablature and dentil cornice, which is set forward to the antae. The dormers are pedimented and separated by a balustrade.

The corner features a full-height drum that is set back and topped with a domed attic storey. The entrance has a distyle-in-antis design with Tuscan columns and an entablature with a dentil cornice, leading to 20th-century doors. Above the entrance, tripartite windows are adorned with guilloche moulding on the mullions, architraves, and dentil cornices, while the attic showcases sculptures of two boys holding a festoon beneath a clock face and a winged putto. The dome is decorated with consoles separated by heavy rope moulding, festoons, and a cornice, featuring lead cartouches, a ribbed dome, and a finial.

Ground-floor windows are semicircular-arched with coved surrounds and blue glass margin panes, and a small right-hand doorway has a large split key beneath an oculus. First-floor windows have architraves with raised aprons and dentil cornices, with 6/9-pane sashes on the first floor and 6/6-pane horned sashes on the second floor. The dormers contain 3/6-pane sashes. The interior has been largely remodelled in the late 20th century but retains an old-fashioned design that is fitting for its important corner location in the financial centre of the city.