National Westminster Bank

The National Westminster Bank in Wells is a bank building constructed in 1856, designed by C.E. Giles of Taunton. It is built from Doulting stone ashlar and features a hipped Welsh slate roof along with ashlar chimney stacks that have moulded caps. The building is designed in the Venetian Gothic style.

The exterior consists of three storeys with irregularly placed windows. It has a plinth, moulded sill strings, and a dentilled cornice. On the ground floor, there is a pointed-arched doorway on the left, which has a label with carved end bosses and a quatrefoil fanlight above a segmental-arch doorway. The heavy doors have ten panels each. To the right of the doorway, there are two 4-light windows set under stilted segmental arches, supported by stiff-leaf capital columns on the jambs, with subdivided toplights over transoms.

On the first floor, there are three pairs of ogee-arched windows that are not regularly spaced. These windows have Purbeck stone columns as dividing mullions, also featuring stiff-leaf capitals. The double-arched labels above the windows have carved leaf ball stops, and above each window, there are three circular recessed panels decorated with various quatrefoil designs. The second floor has four pairs of segmental-arched windows without labels, with plain Purbeck shafts dividing each pair.

The interior has not been seen and has been remodelled on the ground floor. This building was originally constructed for Stuckey's, the Lamport bank, and is located on the site of the George Inn, which was historically known as the Crystesham Inn, first mentioned in 1388. The design is a bold example of its type, reflecting the Ruskinian influences of the 1850s.