Bank of Ireland, 62-68 High Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 2BW

Bank of Ireland, 62-68 High Street, Belfast

This terraced symmetrical three-bay four-storey building with attic was constructed around 1895 to designs by architect William Batt. Built as a bank, it is constructed of machine-made redbrick laid in Flemish bond and represents High Victorian architecture, though the ground floor was given replacement reconstituted stone cladding around 2000.

The building is rectangular on plan with an L-plan three-storey return. The natural slate mansard roof features a steep front pitch clad in fish-scale copper with copper antefixae trim. Tall profiled and dentilled redbrick and rendered chimneystacks rise from both gable ends, each topped with terracotta pots, moulded coping to the gables, and a scrolled pediment to the base of the west stack. The roof sits behind a decorative pierced parapet wall incorporating an elaborate dormer to the centre, which has ball finials, a round-headed window opening, and is surmounted by a diminutive pedimented block. Flanking this central dormer are a pair of copper-clad dormers with antefixae and square-headed window openings containing replacement timber windows. The oriels to either end rise above the crown cornice to form octagonal plan turrets, each with three round-headed window openings, dentilled string courses, and topped by elaborate pinnacled fish-scale copper roofs. Square-profile steel downpipes are positioned to either end.

The front elevation is five windows wide. The walls feature painted terracotta window surrounds, sill courses and a bracketed crown cornice. Window openings on the second and third floors are square-headed, while those to the first floor are round-headed; all contain replacement timber casement windows except the second floor, which retains single-pane timber sash windows with shaped horns. The front elevation displays three-sided canted oriels rising from the second floor, these having decoratively corbelled bases.

A full-span frieze runs across the second floor below the dentilled cornice, bearing raised lettering reading 'THE NATIONAL BANK LIMITED'. The second and third floor windows are framed by pilasters with stiff-leaf capitals, banded and fluted to the second floor, each having foliate panels above. The round-headed window openings to the first floor are framed by panelled pilasters with archivolt mouldings featuring foliate keystones, and an elaborate spandrel panel sits above the central window. The end bays also display elaborate spandrel panels enriched with centaur motifs, with an ancon forming the springing point of the deep corbelled base of the oriel above.

The ground floor contains a central display window with replacement cladding and square-headed door openings to either end, fitted with double-leaf glazed hardwood doors and steel roller shutters, all surmounted by a stone fascia with lead lining to the first floor sill course.

The rendered west gable is partially exposed and partially abutted by an adjoining office building. The rear elevation is three windows wide and is abutted by a single-storey accretion and a full-height return connected to a three-storey flat-roofed block. This elevation features ceramic tiled finishes (cement rendered to the third floor) with segmental-headed window openings having concrete sills and single-pane timber sash windows; those to the rear of the three-storey block have iron bars. The east elevation is abutted by an adjoining building.

The building is street-fronted and faces south onto High Street. A small enclosed rear yard is accessed via Skipper Street, with a further two-storey rendered wing (not accessed) also present on the site.