Northern Bank, 69 Main Street, Fintona, Co Tyrone, BT78 2AG

Northern Bank, 69 Main Street, Fintona

An attached six-bay two-and-a-half-storey Italianate bank building, built around 1885 to designs by architect Joseph Bell. Located on the north side of Main Street, it occupies a prominent position at the crown of the hill and forms one of the principal pieces of street architecture in the town.

The building is rectangular in plan with a two-storey gabled extension to the rear and a partial basement at the rear arising from the site's topography. The pitched roof is tiled with terracotta ridge tiles and sits behind a balustraded parapet; yellow brick chimneys with replacement pots crown the composition. The walls are smooth rendered with ashlar sandstone to the principal elevation, featuring vermiculated rustication to sill height and horizontal banded rustication above to window head height, with sill and string courses throughout.

The south-facing principal elevation displays the solid and ornate character typical of a bank of the period. At ground floor level, each bay contains a single square-headed timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash window surmounted by a plain frieze and cornice. Bay four from the left contains the arched entrance opening with moulded soffit, housing a six-panelled timber door with original bronze door furniture and glazed fanlight. The entrance is flanked by pilasters and abutted by a porch consisting of a pair of Ionic columns with Greek key banding supporting a frieze carved with 'Northern Banking Company Limited', surmounted by a triangular pediment. Three sandstone steps provide access.

At first floor level, each bay comprises an arched opening with moulded archivolt containing a single window, with carved roundels to the spandrels. Bays two and four contain wall-head dormers at attic level with 2/2 sliding sash windows and segmental pediments, with scrolled brackets to the cheeks. The first floor is surmounted by a dentilled cornice and parapet.

The west elevation contains two arched windows at attic level. The north elevation is partly abutted by a return; the exposed section at left contains a square-headed timber sheeted entrance fire escape door to the basement and single timber casement windows at ground and first floor. The exposed section at right contains two timber casement windows at basement, two windows at ground floor, and three timber casement windows at first floor, all with concrete sills. The east elevation, largely abutted by the adjoining building at 67 Main Street, has a single round-arched-headed window at attic level on the exposed section.

Despite modernisation, the building retains all original external features. The interior has experienced some loss of original fabric, though the original character remains evident.

The setting is bounded to the street at the south by a sandstone plinth wall surmounted by cast-iron railings. An enclosed yard to the north is accessed through a modern vertically sheeted timber gate and bounded by rubble walling; a single-storey rendered outbuilding stands to the north-west.

The property first appears in the Annual Revision Records in 1885 as a replacement for four smaller buildings. It was occupied by the Northern Banking Company and leased from Anne Lipsett, with a valuation of £50 0s 0d, a value that remained consistent throughout the period covered by the revision records. The building represents an important remnant of Fintona's early commercial development.