16 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT15 2AA

16 Antrim Road is a two-bay, two-storey red-brick former bank, now offices, built in 1953 on the west side of Antrim Road in North Belfast. The building is simply detailed in typical mid-twentieth century style and is well-proportioned, with much of its original character surviving, though modern alterations have affected its appearance and interior, and its setting has been compromised. It is not among the best examples of the type.

The building comprises a rectangular front block with a corner bay to the southeast, connected to a square rear block by an interlinking bay. It has a flat roof concealed by a brick parapet and tall red-brick chimneystacks with concrete caps, with concealed rainwater goods. The walling is stretcher-bonded red-brick with cement pointing on a grey granite plinth.

Windows are timber casements in slightly recessed concrete surrounds: square at first floor with projecting concrete sills; scalloped concrete lintels to ground floor openings and projecting granite sills. All windows to the front block are fronted by decorative iron railings; windows to the rear block sit in plain brick reveals with brick voussoirs.

The principal elevation faces south and is three openings wide at each floor, with applied painted lettering between floors reading "The Old Bank". The ground floor left window opening has concrete infill and an ATM machine. The central first floor opening features a replacement leaded-and-stained glass oculus in a panelled timber inset. The entrance to the ground floor right comprises an original double-leaf raised-and-fielded three-panel timber door with bronze door furniture, surmounted by an opaque glazed transom light and accessed by a concrete step.

The southeast chamfered corner bay breaks the roof line and has a moulded concrete roundel with a castle and wreath motif over a modern metal entrance door in a concrete reveal.

The south elevation has four windows at first floor and three at ground floor, incorporating the interlinking bay at the left. The rear block at the far left has two windows at first floor and a rectangular window opening to the ground floor left. An original four-rectangular-panelled timber door, surmounted by a three-paned transom light in a brick reveal, is accessed by a concrete step; a timber casement window with projecting concrete sill sits to the right of the door.

The west elevation has been refaced in red-brick and is blank. The north elevation is blank.

The building is situated on a corner site at the junction of Antrim Road and Annesley Street in an area largely characterised by commercial buildings. A gap site to the north is enclosed by high timber fencing, and there is a small enclosed yard to the north.

This building was constructed as a branch of the Belfast Savings Bank in 1953, replacing an earlier bank on the site that was destroyed in the Belfast Blitz. The original building, adapted to designs by Alfred W Brown from former commercial premises on the site, opened on 1st May 1929. The branch made an impressive start, attracting 1,000 depositors in the first six months with funds in excess of £82,000; within 18 months deposits had reached over £200,000. The Carlisle Circus branch was destroyed in the air raids of May 1941 and reopened in this new building on the site in 1953.

The Belfast Savings Bank was the first in the north of Ireland, opening at Smithfield in 1816 as part of an early nineteenth-century movement across the British Isles, aiming to encourage the labouring classes to deposit savings. A further office opened in King Street in 1829, but branches were not opened in earnest until the twentieth century: Mountpottinger was the first in 1900, followed by Shankill Road in 1924.

Some defalcations were experienced by the bank in the 1960s; the manager of Carlisle Circus Branch, Hans Whiteside, was sentenced to three years in 1964 on charges of fraudulent conversion and forgery. The branch did not escape unscathed during the Troubles, and a serious raid took place in 1972 when staff were physically attacked.

On 21st November 1974, Savings Banks across the province merged to form the Trustee Savings Bank of Northern Ireland. TSB Northern Ireland underwent a further merger with Allied Irish Bank in 1991 to form First Trust, which continues to provide banking services from several branches in Belfast. The present building remained a bank until at least the 1990s but is now the headquarters of Wilson Residential Group Ltd, which runs a number of nursing homes in Belfast.