First Trust Bank, 4 Queen’s Square, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 2AL

First Trust Bank is an attached symmetrical five-bay single-storey bank over basement in the Italian Mannerist style, designed by Charles Lanyon and built around 1852. It faces west onto Victoria Street, with side elevations fronting Ulster Street and Custom House Square, and a bowed rear elevation. The building is enclosed by cast-iron railings on all three street-facing sides.

The main facades are constructed in rusticated Portland limestone ashlar on a moulded granite plinth course with granite blocking course. A raised central section features a pie-ended hipped roof with a circular glazed lantern positioned over the bowed rear elevation. All roofs are natural slate with lead ridges, set behind a balustraded parapet wall with moulded coping and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The architectural detailing is elaborate. Vermiculated quoins, a raised V-profile impost course and a full Doric entablature with triglyphs, mutules and enriched soffit run across the facades. Round-headed window openings are set within voussoired arches with decorative cast-iron window frames featuring margin panes and roundels. Deep moulded window sills rest on advanced apron blocks which themselves sit on rusticated blocks, inset with segmental-headed openings fitted with wrought-iron grilles and flanked by brackets rising from the plinth.

The symmetrical front elevation is particularly ornate. Advanced bays at either end contain windows set in double-arched recesses flanked by engaged Ionic columns and responding quarter-engaged Ionic piers supporting full entablature at impost level. The central entrance is flanked by round-headed window openings in coved and voussoired recesses with pierced balustrades to the apron blocks. The entrance arch itself is framed by a pair of Doric columns with quarter-engaged Doric piers supporting an overhanging entablature. The doorcase set deep within comprises a square-headed door with architrave surround flanked by engaged Ionic columns supporting a full dentilled entablature with central cartouche. A semi-circular carved panel with voussoired head and panelled soffit completes the arch. Double-leaf diamond-panelled hardwood doors open onto a granite paved platform approached by nine nosed granite steps with copper handrails on decorative cast-iron posts.

The north side elevation is five windows wide, detailed as per the end bays of the front elevation. A decorative cast-iron spiral stair provides emergency egress from one window, while a segmental-headed door opening below the easternmost window with a flat-panelled iron door provides basement access.

The rear elevation is built in brown brick laid in Flemish bond. A central bow is flanked by a single bay where the quoins, impost and cornice return. Gauged brick flat-arched window openings contain 6/6 timber sash windows. Much of this rear elevation is now obscured by a four-storey extension built around 1987 to designs by Sam Stephenson.

The south side elevation mirrors the north, being five windows wide and detailed as per the front elevation's end bays.

The surrounding setting includes decorative cast-iron railings on a granite plinth wall with matching gates to the front entrance, these gates supported on a pair of rusticated stone piers with Doric entablatures to their capstones. The building is located on the east side of Victoria Street, with its north and south sides fronting Ulster Street and Custom House Square respectively.