Ulster Bank, 27 Main Street, Crumlin, Co Antrim, BT29 4UR

Ulster Bank, 27 Main Street, Crumlin, Co Antrim

This is an inter-war bank built in 1926, designed in a Classical style. The architect is not known. The building has been inappropriately altered both externally and internally.

The main structure is a two-storey building of red brick with Portland stone dressings, occupying a corner site on the main street of the village. The main entrance faces south.

South (entrance) elevation

The south elevation is symmetrical, with an angled bay at its right-hand end forming the corner with the east elevation. The facade is dressed with Portland stone string courses, a parapet, and rusticated quoins at the corners, with a moulded granite plinth at the base. The roof is covered in Westmorland green slates, gabled on the left-hand side where it is contained by a gable upstand with concrete copings, and hipped on the right. There are chimneys to the left of the entrance bay, built in red brick with a Portland stone cornice and blocking course, fitted with three red pots.

The entrance doorway has a semi-circular arch with a coved edge running all the way round, terminating at the base in coved stop-chamfers and rising at the apex to a moulded keystone. Above the keystone sits a raised plaque carried on flared dentils, inscribed with the name of the bank. The doorway is flanked by rusticated projecting piers which rise to support an open pediment at first-floor level. The entrance doors are double doors of varnished oak, three-panelled, with raised and fielded panels of stepped design, set in a moulded varnished oak frame. The semi-circular fanlight above is plain, though embossed with a modern bank symbol. A dentil cornice runs across the top of the door frame. There is a deep granite step at the entrance.

The first-floor open pediment has modillions and contains a carved cartouche. A modillion cornice extends to each side across the full width of the building. The central entrance bay is flanked by two windows on each floor to either side. First-floor windows are rectangular timber units comprising a fixed light and a side-hung casement, surmounted by a top-hung vent and fixed light, set in Portland stone jambs flush with the wall plane, with the Portland stone head formed by the string course and a projecting moulded Portland stone cill. Ground-floor windows are modern replacements — rectangular timber fixed lights with a top-hung vent — with surrounds and cills matching those at first-floor level. Between each pair of windows is a cast iron downpipe with an original bulbous cast iron hopper just below the first-floor string course.

The angled corner bay has rusticated extremities of Portland stone. At ground-floor level, the original window opening has been replaced by a reconstituted stone-panelled 'autobank' installation, with a modern metal and perspex segmental canopy over it. At first-floor level, the angled corner bay has a red brick panel below a rectangular timber window of similar form to the other first-floor windows, surmounted by a segmental open pediment with modillions containing a carved cartouche inscribed with the date 1926.

East elevation

The east elevation is two storeys, of similar materials to the entrance front, with rusticated quoins at the corners. There are four window openings on each floor, with rectangular timber windows differing between floors as on the entrance front. The extreme left-hand window openings on both floors are blank, closed with brickwork that forms the face of a chimney rising behind the parapet — similar in design to the chimney on the entrance front. A further similar chimney sits on the ridge at the right-hand gable. There are two cast iron downpipes on the east elevation with bulbous cast iron hoppers: one to the left of the first window on the left, and one between the third and fourth windows.

Single-storey later extension

Extending to the right of the main block's end gable is a lower, single-storey later extension. It has a blank red brick wall with modern concrete rusticated quoins at the right-hand corner, a moulded concrete plinth, and a moulded concrete cornice over a deep concrete frieze. The roof is covered in asbestos slates in regular courses, set within a gable upstand on the right-hand side.

North gable and rear

The north gable of the main block, facing the side road, is finished in roughcast with quoins at the left-hand corner; the cornice and parapet make short returns from the entrance front. There is a red brick chimney on the apex of the gable, flush with the wall. The north gable of the later extension is asymmetrical, comprising a blank red brick half-gable projecting forward from a set-back half-gable of roughcast. The roughcast portion has two rectangular windows with metal fixed lights, top-hung vents, and metal grilles affixed.

To the right of the extension is a gateway to the rear car park: a modern red brick pier abutting the gable of the extension, with double ledged timber gates mounted with iron spikes, fixed at the right onto a boundary wall of the yard. The yard wall is of rubble basalt rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones. The west gable of the main block is rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones, with Portland stone quoins at the right-hand corner and a short return of the front cornice and parapet. The plain cement-rendered chimney of the adjoining house projects above the bank's roof ridge.

The rear elevation comprises the two-storey L-shaped main block with a lower two-storey return projecting to the right, and a later single-storey block occupying the space between. All rear walls are rendered with a wet dash of stone chippings. The main block has a roof of Westmorland green slates in diminishing courses, with a cast iron gutter on a moulded wooden fascia with a plastered soffit, and a cast iron downpipe. The return to the right has a roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses, hipped to the south and gabled to the north with plain wooden bargeboards, with cast iron rainwater goods throughout.

There are two windows to the first floor of the main block facing north: rectangular timber sliding sash windows, vertically hung, one-over-one with horns, with plain reveals and projecting cills, fitted with modern security bars. One window to the first floor of the left-hand return of the main block is a modern rectangular timber fixed light with a side-hung casement and top-hung vents, with plain reveals and cill as the others, and modern metal security bars affixed. Two windows to the first floor of the right-hand return are rectangular timber one-over-one sash windows detailed as the others.

The single-storey block between the returns has a flat roof with modern rooflights, and a blank north wall finished in roughcast with concrete copings. A modern steel fire escape staircase within the yard is carried over the single-storey block to a modern flush steel door in the left-hand return. The gable of the left-hand return is blank and roughcast, with a later gabled lower wing projecting from it, roofed in asbestos slates in regular courses with a PVC gutter and downpipe and painted wooden fascia; there is one rectangular metal fixed light and casement with a top-hung vent at ground-floor level in this wing.

The gable of the right-hand return has two first-floor windows: one rectangular timber sash as previously described, and one large rectangular modern window. At ground-floor level there is a rectangular steel door leading into the yard. The return also has a lower flat-roofed extension projecting from it, which appears to be an original wing later raised in height. This has a rectangular timber sash window as previously described, to the left of a ledged timber door.

The north side of the yard is enclosed partly by a gabled block and partly by a yard wall. The gabled block has Bangor blue slates in regular courses with a flush verge, roughcast walls, and a large rectangular window in the east gable, with a ledged timber door facing into the yard. The yard wall is roughcast as previously described, with concrete copings, and a ledged timber door leading to the rear car park beyond. The north wall of the gabled garage within the car park has a large ledged timber door mounted on runners; the garage is now used as a store.

Setting

The building stands on a corner site facing the main street of the village, with a lower two-storey building adjoining it on the west side. There is a walled car park to the rear, surfaced with tarmac. Projecting into the car park from the western boundary wall is a single-storey roughcast enclosure housing an oil tank.