Ulster Bank, 10 Main Street, Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5AD

Ulster Bank, Garvagh

A symmetrical two-storey-with-attic detached bank building, designed by Thomas Jackson and built in 1870, located on the west side of Main Street in Garvagh town centre. The building remains in use as a branch of the Ulster Bank and is a landmark structure of significant social importance to the town.

The bank has a rectangular plan with a two-storey return to the rear. A pitched natural slate roof with blue and black angled ridge tiles sits above rendered chimneystacks to the gables, which have corniced caps and chamfered corners. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fitted to projecting eaves, with parapet gutters to the principal elevation. The walling is painted roughcast render applied over a chamfered smooth rendered plinth with rusticated quoins. Plain friezes run beneath the corniced parapet and between floors.

The principal elevation faces east and is five openings wide at each floor. Windows are 1/1 timber sash with horns, set in smooth stucco architraves with continuous sill courses to the first floor. Circular ornamented details appear to the window heads, with scrolled corbels beneath the sills at ground floor. At the centre of the ground floor is a segmental-headed doorcase accessed via modern concrete steps and ramp with metal handrail. The door itself is a bolection-moulded raised-and-pointed four-panel timber door with brass furniture, set in a cavetto reveal with moulded surround. A raised keyblock with corbel sits beneath a moulded panel containing the red hand of Ulster motif in the frieze above.

The south gable contains two timber casement windows to the attic, along with two modern timber windows at ground floor. The west (rear) elevation has three 2/2 windows at right, abutted at left by a lower two-storey return that projects to the north. This return's exposed east gable features a shaped parapet, a 1/1 window at first floor, and a large window at ground floor. The south elevation of the return has two windows at first and ground floor levels, with a window to the ground floor left of the gable. The north elevation is blank. The north gable features a segmental-headed 2/2 window with coloured glass margin panes, ground floor containing two modern timber windows and a modern timber door with sidelight beneath a felt-roof canopy.

The building is street-fronted with modern concrete walls topped by railings to the front entrance, situated at the north end of Main Street adjacent to Main Street Presbyterian Church. An enclosed yard to the rear contains an original two-storey roughcast rendered former stableblock at the southwest corner. The segmental-headed carriage-arch at left has been converted into a garage with a mid-twentieth-century garage door, with a frame of 3/1 window (lower sash probably missing) at first floor. Timber-sheeted loading and ground floor doors occupy the right of centre and right respectively at first floor. A louvered timber opening serves both ground and first floors. A slated lean-to, formerly a coal-shed, sits at the north gable with timber-sheeted walls and large openings at the gable. The yard is enclosed to the west by a high roughcast rendered wall with exposed rubble stone at its west face, accessed through a segmental-headed timber-sheeted gate. The south gable is enclosed with a large metal security gate on a square rendered pier, while the north gable has mid-twentieth-century metal gates.

The Ulster Bank's Garvagh branch was designed by Thomas Jackson and Son and opened for business on 22 November 1872. The building occupies the site of a row of thatched cottages with a saw pit to the rear. Thomas Jackson and his sons undertook several commissions for the Ulster Bank during the 1870s, including Ulster Bank Buildings in Belfast and branches in Granard, County Longford and Tuam, County Galway, as the bank opened twenty branches across Ulster and Ireland during 1870-1880. The first manager was James T Gallogly, succeeded by David Hoy, who later became a director of the bank. John Niblock became manager in 1898. Subsequent managers included C W Lester (1921), Hugh Knox (1925), W B Hope (1927), John Craig (1943), George A Walker (1949), W S De G D Griffith (1953) and William Henry Borland (1958). A plan from the First General Revaluation (1933-57) shows the bank with rear return, scullery return, stables and coal shed in the yard. The building accommodated a general office, manager's office, strong room and lavatory, together with a manager's house comprising three reception rooms, a box room, seven bedrooms, a bathroom and WC. The building was listed in 1977, and modifications were made during 2002-4 including the addition of a ramp and handrail to the front facade.