Number 16 Bank Buildings Including Front Railings

Number 16 Bank Buildings, Weymouth

A large house, formerly a hotel, standing at the end of a terrace on the Esplanade. The building dates from around 1850, with considerable modification undertaken around 1900. It is constructed in cream brickwork laid in Flemish bond beneath a slate roof. The structure is rectangular in plan with frontages on three sides, including a frontage to Custom House Quay on the south.

The main front to the Esplanade presents a symmetrical composition of three storeys, with an additional storey at the south end, an attic storey, and a basement. The upper floors are lit by three windows. Above these are two flat-roofed 20th-century casement dormers. The second floor contains 12-pane sash windows to plain reveals with a sill band, beneath which is a deep 15-pane sash window also to plain reveals. This floor sits on a stone full-width balcony supported on eight brackets, with a cast-iron balustrade featuring anthemion decoration.

The ground floor displays two wide arches in four recessed orders, each containing a large arched 3-light casement window with transom, the upper mullions being formed as colonnettes with deep stooled sills within the recess. The central arch is in five orders and contains a 20th-century door with plain fanlight beneath a dentilled transom, flanked by fluted quarter-pilaster responds. The entrance is reached via five nosed steps, flanked on either side by a solid panelled balustrade which sweeps down to the front. The entrance is further flanked by Gothick railings, which return at the left end, and by a gate and basement steps to the right. Large down-pipes with substantial hopper-heads project prominently at either end of the frontage.

The roof is low-pitched and hipped, with deep eaves displaying exposed rafters and two stacks positioned at the right party wall.

The flank elevation facing the side road comprises five bays. Three original flat-roofed dormers light the upper storeys, above four 12-pane sashes at second floor level set to a sill band, and an inserted door to an escape stair at the second bay. The first floor contains four deep 15-pane sashes to a sill band and a matching door. The ground floor features a recessed arch containing a 9-pane sash window, followed by a pair of steps with arched support carrying a flat canopy on heavy brackets. Beneath this canopy is a glazed and panelled screen covering two doors with Art Nouveau detail under transom lights with a central mullion. To the right is an elliptical arch containing a tripartite sash above a further 3-light window. A stone plinth runs along the base, returning to meet the Quay frontage.

The Quay frontage comprises three bays, illuminated by two large late 20th-century dormers and a railed balcony above. The third and second floors are lit by small square 6-pane sashes, the latter breaking through the sill band at their heads. The first floor contains 12-pane sashes to the sill band. The raised ground floor displays three recessed arched panels with a central very wide 16-pane sash set beneath a rendered tympanum, flanked by 12-pane windows with splayed V-joint voussoirs within the arch. The stone plinth rises to the sill level of these windows and contains a wide central square opening with glazed doors accessed via six steps down to the basement, flanked by grilled openings. A central lift tower rises on the party wall side, with a stack positioned near the Quay end and a sash window near the Esplanade front sitting above the adjoining building.

The interior was not inspected at the time of listing.

Front railings form part of this listed entry.