Ulster Bank, 20 Ann Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6AD

Ulster Bank, Ann Street, Ballycastle

This three-storey terrace bank building dates from 1918-19 and was possibly designed by Blackwood & Jury, the architects responsible for several other Ulster Bank premises of the period. It is built in the typical institutional neo-Renaissance style characteristic of the era. Despite corporate alterations, the building remains substantially intact.

The building is positioned on the north-west side of Ann Street. Its front elevation, facing south-east, features an asymmetrical ground floor with the entrance door positioned in the first bay to the right. The first and second floors are treated as a piano nobile, articulated with giant pilasters that rest on the rusticated ground floor and support a crowning entablature.

The ground floor entrance comprises a six-panel mahogany door with brass ironmongery and moulded fielded panels. To the right are two six-pane windows with high sloping cills. A narrow two-pane window fills the wall space to the left of the door. The bays are divided by piers or pilasters that rise through the name fascia (frieze) and are topped with a thin cornice. The wall is rusticated with recessed joints. At the top of the piers, aligned with the fascia, are oval garlands, though those in the first and second bays have been removed where the bank's name appears in the frieze.

The first floor has three double-hung sliding sash windows with two panes each, slightly recessed within plain architraves. Each is supported by scrolls bearing horizontal moulded hoods; the centre window is crowned with a pediment that may have been intended as an aedicule. The second floor contains three similar double-hung sliding sash windows with two panes, but of reduced height, set within lugged architraves.

The bays are divided by smooth pilasters complete with bases and freely interpreted capitals, supporting a cornice stringcourse (now compromised by electricity cables). Above this runs a deep plain frieze punctuated with pyramidal blocks, topped by a projecting dominant cornice. A sloping parapet with two acroteria, aligned with the pilasters, crowns the composition. The wall is executed in plasterwork.

The roof is slated with two gable chimneystacks and a concealed gutter with a single downpipe. The building rises considerably above its adjoining neighbours. The exposed gables are treated with heavily moulded barge boards forming kneelers on both front and rear, with a moulded horizontal stringcourse creating the impression of a pediment. Narrow windows are squeezed into the second floor of the gables above the adjoining roofs.

The rear elevation comprises a three-bay, two-storey return. Fenestration throughout the rear of the main block and return consists of double-hung sliding sash windows with two panes. In the angle between the return and front block is a ground floor rear door with side screen and lean-to roof, forming a chamfered corner. At the end of the return, set at right angles, is a lateral outhouse with a dormer hoist, now missing. The building respects the terrace building line.

The Ulster Bank first opened a branch in Ballycastle in November 1917, occupying a rented room on the ground floor of the Antrim Arms Hotel at the east end of Castle Street, with a bedroom also rented for the manager, William H. Tighe. In 1918, a pre-1834 two-storey dwelling house on Ann Street was purchased and subsequently demolished to make way for the present building.