Bank Buildings, Castle Place, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 1BL

Bank Buildings, Castle Place, Belfast

Bank Buildings is an attached, symmetrical, multi-bay, five-storey department store with an attic storey, built between 1885 and 1900 to designs by William Henry Lynn (1829–1915). Constructed in red sandstone ashlar and polished granite in a classical style, it occupies a prominent city centre site at the junction of Royal Avenue, Castle Place, Castle Street, and Donegall Place, facing east. The building is rectangular on plan, with its principal elevation fronting Castle Place and multi-bay side elevations running along Castle Street and Bank Street.

Historical Background

The site takes its name from Cunningham's Bank, founded in 1787 but closed in 1798, after which the former bank building was converted into dwellings, one of which served briefly as the Belfast residence of the Bishop of Down. In 1855 those dwellings were replaced by a four-storey Italianate building erected for Hawkins, Robertson and Company, a textile firm that later became Robertson, Ledlie, Ferguson and Company Limited. The current Bank Buildings is therefore the third known structure on this site.

Lynn was one of the preeminent Belfast-based architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A former pupil of Charles Lanyon, he entered partnership with Lanyon in 1854, forming the firm Lanyon and Lynn, before establishing an independent practice in 1872. Bank Buildings is among his later commissions. Construction began as early as 1885, when Lynn rebuilt part of the existing structures on the site using Dumfries stone, and continued along Castle Street before the main block facing Castle Place was finally constructed in 1899 to 1900. All construction between 1885 and 1900 was carried out by James Henry and Sons of the Crumlin Road.

The building is often cited as Ireland's first steel-framed structure, a claim not uncontested — the architectural historian Paul Larmour argued in 1987 that it is "not the pioneering steel-framed structure that has been sometimes claimed; rather it is in the conventional manner of the time with cast iron piers inside," describing the overall design as "an ungainly looking stone brute in a heavy classical mode." Charles Brett, by contrast, praised it as "a bridge to the twentieth century," commending the "successful compromise between a classical style in the upper part of the building and a great expanse of plate glass below," though he noted that the installation of the Corinthian columns was "a most alarming and vertiginous feature of an otherwise dignified design." Whatever the precise structural method, the steel or iron frame is clearly expressed through the grid-like fenestration and high window-to-wall ratio.

In 1885 the initial block was valued at £650, rising to £2,050 by 1891. On completion of Lynn's monumental classical façade in 1901, the total valuation reached £4,000. The Belfast Street Directory of that year recorded the building as occupied by Robertson, Ledlie, Ferguson and Company Limited, described as "wholesale and retail linen merchants, woollen drapers, silk merchants and general house furnishers." By 1930 the valuation had risen to £5,750, partly reflecting the incorporation of adjoining buildings on Castle Street in 1925. Foundation repairs were carried out in 1932, and shop front alterations were undertaken in 1938 by Hobart and Heron, bringing the valuation to £8,000 under the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland completed in 1935. During the Belfast Blitz of 1941, the building narrowly escaped the bombing that levelled much of the neighbouring High Street. A six-storey extension on Castle Street was added in 1952, also designed by Hobart and Heron, raising the value to £10,520 under the second general revaluation, which concluded in 1972.

Robertson, Ledlie, Ferguson and Company Limited continued to trade from the building until 1969, when their shares were acquired by House of Fraser. Boots purchased the site in 1973 when it bought out House of Fraser. In 1975 three bombs exploded outside the building, causing a fire that largely gutted the interior. The building was not repaired and reopened until 1979, when the Dublin clothing firm Primark restored the façade and made good the fire damage. Bank Buildings was listed in 1980 and continued to be occupied by Primark for over three decades thereafter.

Exterior

The roof was replaced following the 1975 bomb damage. To the front block, a natural slate half-hipped roof sits behind a balustrade parapet, with tall stepped profiled chimneystacks — or ventilation shafts — rising from the four corners. The remainder of the building has a replacement mansard-type roof with natural slate steeply pitched attic slopes and dormer windows.

At the centre of the front elevation, a copper-lined segmental-pedimented clock dormer breaks through the parapet. It has a metal clock face set within a decoratively carved stone surround, with a cartouche to the pediment recording the completion date of 1900. The clock itself was installed by Sharman D. Neill, a local clockmaker who later had offices at 36–38 Donegall Place. The dormer is flanked by scrolled brackets set on swagged panels and a pair of urns. To the centre of both side elevations of the front block there is a further segmental-pedimented dormer with cartouches to the pediment and paired windows framed by Doric pilasters. All dormers have slated cheeks with dentilled cornices. Dormers to the side elevation roofs are segmental-pedimented with single-pane timber sash windows. To the west end of the south elevation is a tripartite attic block with oculi having swag surrounds, a dentilled cornice, and two chimneystacks above.

The walling is red sandstone ashlar throughout, with polished red granite to the ground floor and first floor of the front block and a polished black granite plinth course. There is a continuous cornice over the ground and first floors, a dentilled and modillioned crown cornice over the third floor, and a further dentilled cornice over the attic storey.

The symmetrical front east elevation is six windows wide. The attic storey has paired window openings with torus-moulded surrounds flanked by squat Doric pilasters with a scallop detail to the base. At the second and third floor levels, a giant Corinthian order of polished red granite engaged columns frames the windows, set into sandstone Doric pilasters with fluted egg-and-dart capitals. Between the second and third floors, decorative lintel panels carry floral festoons and are supported on quarter-engaged Doric pilasters. The two central windows are divided by a polished granite Doric pilaster, and the lintel panel above carries gilded lettering reading "THE BANK BUILDINGS." At first floor level, a large central thermal window with glazed oculi to the spandrels is flanked by polished granite pilasters rising to the full-span cornice; it corresponds to the principal entrance below, and is flanked on either side by large bipartite fixed-pane display windows. At ground floor level there is a central double-height glazed entrance screen flanked by shop display windows, all framed by channel-rusticated polished granite Doric pilasters. The cornice rises slightly above the entrance and has a scrolled centrepiece, with a bronze plaque to the fascia reading "ROBERTSON. LEDLIE. FERGUSON and Co. Ltd."

Window openings on the side elevations are square-headed with single-pane timber sash windows; the front elevation has bipartite timber casements, and the ground floor has large display windows throughout.

The south side elevation is twenty windows wide. The three easternmost windows continue the detailing of the front elevation. Second and third floor windows on the remainder are framed by a giant Ionic order of sandstone pilasters, with architrave surrounds and projecting moulded sills supported on brackets. The first floor windows are deeply recessed with a continuous moulded sill course having raised-and-fielded apron panels and splayed outer sills. The ground floor has large display windows matching those on the front elevation, with ceramic tiled walls between them.

The rear elevation is abutted by a six-storey office building constructed around 1950. The north side elevation has its three easternmost windows detailed to match the front elevation, with the following four windows — now blind — detailed to match the south elevation. The central section of this elevation was rebuilt in red brick around 1980; the remainder is also in red brick with red sandstone ashlar at ground floor level and red sandstone mouldings. All windows on this elevation are blind, and the ground floor has ceramic tiled bays to the eastern half.

Rainwater goods are internal. The roof is natural slate. Windows are timber throughout.

Setting

Bank Buildings occupies a prominent city centre site at the junction of Royal Avenue, Castle Place, Castle Street, and Donegall Place, and lies within a conservation area. It is a fine example of High Victorian commercial architecture, reflecting Belfast's ambitions as a mercantile centre and standing as a significant work in the later career of William Henry Lynn.