Northern Bank, 5 Main Street, Randalstown, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 3AB

Northern Bank, Randalstown

This is a Victorian bank built in a plain Italianate style which has lost some of its original interior features but retains its essential exterior appearance and character, providing the main street of the town with an important element of formal architecture.

The building is a two-storey, five-bay structure in plain Italianate style with its main entrance facing south. The entrance elevation is symmetrical except for the doorway being slightly off-centre to the left and the window above it off-centre to the right. The hipped roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses, with widely overhanging eaves supported on paired modillion brackets and recessed panels to the soffits. There are three chimneys: one to each end gable and one off-centre to the left behind the main ridge. All are smooth rendered with wide projecting moulded cornices.

The walls are smooth rendered, lined and blocked, with a moulded projecting smooth rendered plinth. A moulded stringcourse, moulded cornice, and plain frieze run across the ground floor. Both floors have moulded cill courses, though that to the ground floor has been partly removed to the right of the entrance to accommodate a wall safe. A moulded cast iron gutter with a single rectangular section cast iron downpipe runs around the building.

The five first-floor windows and four ground-floor windows are all timber sliding sashes, 1 over 1 with horns. The ground-floor windows are semi-circular headed, set in semi-circular arched recesses with moulded imposts, archivolts, and plain keystones. The first-floor windows are segmental-headed, set in stilted moulded segmental arched openings with plain imposts and keystones. The entrance doorway is recessed in a shouldered semi-circular arch surmounted by a plain semi-circular arched fanlight, with original rectangular timber double doors, each leaf with three raised and fielded panels. The entrance is reached by a flight of five concrete steps, curved beyond the front boundary wall.

The west elevation is mostly obscured by an adjoining building abutting it, though where the adjoining building is set back slightly, the walls and roof are visible, with a gable chimney visible behind the ridge of the adjoining building.

The rear elevation is two-storey with a similar character to the front, but includes a modern single-storey concrete brick extension projecting from the left; a taller rendered projection to the central portion; and a low lean-to rendered single-storey rear return to the right-hand side. The main block has a hipped slated roof as to the entrance front, overhanging on coupled brackets with recessed panels to the soffits. Moulded cast iron gutters with cast iron downpipes are present. Walls are smooth plastered, lined and blocked, with a high projecting plinth and prominent moulded projecting stringcourses between storeys, with a plain platband to the first floor at the springing height of the arched window openings. The main block rear wall has a break forward to the left, containing three windows to the first floor with two windows in the rear wall set back to the right. The windows to the first floor of the break front are segmental-headed timber sliding sashes, 2 over 2 with horns, with moulded arched surrounds and keystones. One similar window is set in the set-back rear wall, with a smaller rectangular timber sliding sash window 1 over 1 with horns set in reveals to the right-hand extremity. A single doorway in the side of the central projection contains a modern flush steel door in plain reveals. One small rectangular timber sliding sash window, 1 over 1 with horns, with steel security bars affixed, is present to the ground floor of the set-back rear wall. The single-storey rear return has a slated roof, smooth rendered walls with plinth, two windows with sliding sashes 2 over 2 with horns, and a third window with modern metal fixed light with side-hung casements. There is one plain rectangular flush timber door, one louvred timber door, and a third doorway with an original boarded timber door. A cast iron gutter and downpipe run around this section.

The east elevation is similar in walling, roofing, and eaves to the entrance front, with a prominent chimney to the centre of the gable, moulded cast iron gutter, and cast iron downpipe. Much of the lower portion of the ground floor is hidden from the front by a set-back screen wall to the rear yard.

The screen wall is smooth rendered, lined and blocked, with a moulded projecting plinth and plain projecting coping. Its canted face to the east contains a large semi-circular arched vehicular gateway with chamfered reveals and iron-plated double doors. Within the yard, the east elevation has a single-storey canted bay projecting to the left behind the yard wall, with smooth rendered walling, lined and blocked, and plain projecting eaves course. A moulded cast iron gutter and cast iron downpipe are fitted. Two small segmental-headed timber sliding sash windows, 1 over 1 with horns, are set in plain reveals with security bars affixed. To the right of the canted bay is the trace of a blocked-up window with moulded semi-circular arched surround and keystone still visible.

The building stands in the main street of the town, abutted by an adjoining building to the west but occupying a corner site to the right. It faces directly onto the street but is enclosed within a shallow front area bounded by a smooth rendered plinth wall surmounted by original cast iron spear-head railings set between short square piers with moulded caps and bases. The boundary wall and railings open at the east end to allow a modern pedestrian ramp up to the main entrance, extending beyond the building at the east end with a curved return to abut the yard wall. The flight of steps between the central piers up to the bank entrance has a freestanding raking tubular iron or steel handrail on moulded posts, with modern tubular handrails also attached to the piers.

The rear yard is approached from the street by a tarmac driveway. The yard boundary wall to the east is of basalt rubble with plain concrete coping on the outer face. The area at the rear and enclosed in the yard at the east side is tarmac. The inner face of the boundary wall to the east is of roughcast render. To the rear of the yard is a lean-to garage of roughcast render with a modern metal door and a rectangular timber sashed window, 2 over 2 with horns, together with a sheeted timber door. Beyond the yard is a long overgrown garden plot.

The building was built as a branch office for the Belfast Banking Company in two stages, starting with the three bays to the east in 1865, and then extended by two additional bays to the west in 1903. It subsequently became a branch of the Northern Bank.