National Westminster Bank

This is a bank building dating to around 1900. It is constructed of cream ashlar, with Portland stone used for the ground floor, and has a slate roof. The design is Italianate, incorporating a prominent, accentuated quadrant corner that extends to Lower Bond Street.

The three-storey front presents four windows to St Thomas Street, a single-window quadrant corner, and a five-window return. The main front features square sash windows with moulded architraves and sills. The upper sashes have architraves that terminate in flared feet, set beneath moulded pediments—segmental in the centre and triangular to the outer bays. A vertical, elliptical oculus with glazing bars, within a scrolled cartouche, sits at the corner, above a projecting oriel with three sashes and Ionic pilaster mullions. The oriel is topped with a stone dome, entablature with an egg-and-dart cornice, and a bold baroque shell-bracket.

The ground floor is channelled, with a wide window featuring scrolled lintel supports, flanked by two narrower lights divided by an unfluted Ionic three-quarter column. The building has a polished red granite plinth, a modillion cornice at ground floor, a frieze mostly concealed by a late 20th-century lettering sign, and a modillion eaves cornice. Above the quadrant, which is slightly recessed, is a carved coat of arms with ornate supports, set upon a broken baroque pediment and a base with scroll supporters. The main entrance, positioned at the corner, features a heavy bolection-mould door surround in polished red granite, over a pair of doors.

The return front mirrors the details of St Thomas Street but with some simplifications; a two-storey canted oriel with flat pilaster mullions and a panelled skirt is placed above a wide two-light opening using an unfluted Ionic three-quarter column as a mullion. To the right are three square sashes at the second floor, two at the first floor with segmental pediments, and a Palladian sash with Ionic columns within Doric pilasters, all set on a deep sill with moulded brackets. The ground floor has two plain and three narrow openings. Three Portland stone ridge stacks, each with skirts and small moulded cappings, are present. The interior of the building was not inspected. The building’s design is intended to create a strong visual statement at the street intersection due to its pronounced corner.