Lloyds Bank

Lloyds Bank is a bank building of 1898, designed by F.W. Waller and Son. It is constructed of red brick with granite ashlar and terracotta detailing, and has a tiled roof. The design is in a Northern Renaissance style. The building is three storeys high, with a cellar and attic, and is symmetrical in its front elevation of five bays, with a slight projection to each end bay. The central three bays are topped by a large gable, flanked by smaller gables above the end bays. The ground floor is rusticated with rock-faced courses, capped by a moulded band at first-floor level, and features a large arched opening in each bay. The arches have tilted and panelled keystones; the central arch has a rock-faced corbel incorporating a keystone that supports a canted bay window in stone on the upper floors. An ashlar apron with raised panels sits below the first-floor windows. Raised stone quoins are at the corners of the end bays, rising to a stone crowning entablature with a dentil cornice at attic-floor level, surmounted by a false parapet supporting the attic gables. The ground floor has metal-framed doorways with plain fanlights in the end bays, and metal-framed windows in the central bays. The first floor has a cross mullion and transom window with casements in the front of the canted bay, with transom lights to the sides. The bays to either side have cross mullion and transom windows with casements in architrave frames with entablatures crowned by segmental pediments on the projecting bays and triangular pediments on the inner bays. The second floor has similar fenestration, except that the windows in the inner bays are single lights with transoms, all with moulded stone sills on brackets. The central gable contains a three-light mullion and transom window in an architrave frame crowned by a swan-neck pediment, and an oculus under a hoodmould in the gable apex. The window and oculus are flanked by polygonal shafts capped with spike finials, with another finial above the gable apex. The interior was not inspected. It is considered a fine example of a provincial architect’s work in this style, and forms a group with Gribble’s bank at No. 21.