Old Employment Exchange

BARNSTAPLE

SS5533SE THE SQUARE 684-1/7/234 (North side) 31/12/73 Old Employment Exchange (Formerly Listed as: THE SQUARE (North side) Employment Exchange)

GV II

Bank, now shops and studio. Probably about 1850-60, re-roofed in 1880s. For the West of England and South Wales District Bank. Limestone ashlar on a granite ashlar plinth; red brick side walls. Slated mansard roof. 2 limestone ashlar chimneys with bracketed cornices and shaped tops. Red brick chimney at rear (visible from Boutport Street), also with bracketed stone cornice. Ground floor seems to have consisted of a single large room, presumably the banking hall, with offices in the front right-hand corner. Entrance passage at far right-hand end leading to staircase at rear. Classical mostly Italianate style. 3 storeys with garret. 3-window range to The Square, 2 windows to Boutport Street. Rusticated ground storey with vermiculated quoins and surrounds to openings. 2 round-arched windows in each front, together with round-arched doorways on rounded corner and at right-hand end of front to The Square. Moulded string course at impost-level. Plain window with transom lights. 3-panelled double doors on corner; 6-panelled door to stair hall. Dentilled cornice above ground storey. Pulvinated frieze and cornice above 2nd storey. Heavily bracketed top cornice and blocking-course. 2nd-storey windows have plain surrounds and cornices on consoles, except for plain right-hand window facing The Square; the other 2 windows on this side are of 3 lights. 3rd-storey windows, 4 to The Square and 2 to Boutport Street, have moulded architraves slightly buttressed at the front. Plain sashes in both upper storeys. The rounded corner has a plain shaped panel in the 2nd storey and a pair of shields with coats of arms in the 3rd storey. 3 dormer windows towards The Square, 2 to Boutport Street; all have triangular pediments bracketed at the front and sides. INTERIOR only ground floor inspected. Main room has panelled walls and ceiling; enriched soffits to beams; both this and the former office have modillioned cornices. Entrance passage has similar cornice, together with chandelier boss. Geometrical wood staircase with slender turned balusters, carved step-ends, the balustrade voluted at the foot. HISTORICAL NOTE: erected for the West of England and South Wales District Bank, which opened a branch in Bridge Buildings on the west side of The Square in 1845, moving to the present site 'some years later'. The bank failed in 1878 and was replaced in 1880 by a branch of the Devon and Cornwall Bank. This was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 1906. (Gardiner WP: Barnstaple, 1837-97: Barnstaple: 1897-: 238; The Dark Horse (Lloyds Bank house magazine): July 1941: 1941-: 281).

Listing NGR: SS5588933032