Bank House

Bank House is a mid-19th century office building with shops, likely incorporating earlier fabric. It was formerly a bank, occupied by the West of England and South Wales District Bank according to directories from 1870 and 1878. The building has a solid rendered front and a roof not visible from the street, with a rendered chimney on the right gable end. It is arranged over three storeys and has a basement, with a double-depth plan, two rooms wide, a central rear stair compartment, and a rear left-wing. The symmetrical front has five windows. The central doorway has a segmental head, inset columns with foliated capitals, enriched imposts, a moulded archivolt, and a large carved keystone. Mid- to late-19th century shop fronts are positioned either side of the entrance. Upper-storey windows are segmental-headed with bracketed sills and moulded architraves, containing plain sashes. Horizontally-channelled pilasters flank the front, rising to a moulded top cornice, above which is a tall parapet with a raised inscription reading BANK HOUSE. The interior includes an early 18th-century-style wooden staircase with turned balusters and a broad flat handrail, featuring 19th or 20th-century features. First-floor rooms have 19th-century moulded cornices, and a good grey marble chimneypiece with an original round-arched iron grate is present in the rear right-hand room. Second-floor rooms have mid- to late-19th century chimneypieces with iron grates. A back staircase, now leading up from the first floor of the adjacent building at No. 67, has a re-set early 18th-century balustrade with turned balusters and a heavy moulded handrail; the opposing balustrade is 19th century and of a similar style. Bank vaults are believed to survive in the basement. The site was not marked as a bank on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1886.