National Westminster Bank

The National Westminster Bank, on the corner of Station Road and Bro Helyg, was designed by Shayler and Ridge and built between 1922 and 1924 for the National Provincial Bank. It is a fine example of a bank designed in the early 18th century style. The building is two storeys high with attics and has a steeply pitched slate roof with tall stone chimneys. There are three dormers on each street elevation, alternating between triangular and segmental pediments, each with small pane casement glazing. The pale ashlar elevations feature a dentil cornice, stringcourses below the first and ground floor windows, and a shallow plinth.

A single bay projects at the splayed corner, featuring a first-floor twelve-pane horned sash window within an architrave with a stepped keystone. The entrance doorway has an open segmental pediment containing a cartouche with the ‘NPB’ monogram, flanked by banded Ionic columns, and a stepped voussoir-lintel.

The elevation to Station Road has five bays; the first floor features three twelve-pane horned sash windows flanked by narrower eight-pane horned sashes. On the ground floor, three taller fifteen-pane sashes are present, with a narrower ten-pane sash to the left and a doorway with a cornice and a small sash window above it to the right.

The Bro Helyg elevation, also with five bays, has twelve-pane horned sashes to the first floor and fifteen-pane sashes to the ground floor, with architraves similar to those on Station Road. A lower, red brick extension to the rear has a hipped roof and an attic dormer facing the road.

References: E Hubbard, Clwyd (The Buildings Of Wales), 1986, p 238.