NORTHERN BANK

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached multi-bay two-storey with attic stone and rendered Arts and Crafts former bank, built c.1898, to the designs of G.W. Ferguson. Main building is L-shaped on plan facing west onto Church Street overlooking an open central square in the village of Claudy; gabled two-storey return to rear (E) adjoined by narrower single storey duo-pitched abutment. Small front area enclosed by low stone plinth wall with decorative iron railings.

Pitched artificial slate roof (hipped to the southeast) with terracotta ridge tiles and three tall rendered profiled chimney-stacks with clay pots. Roof set behind curvilinear gable to the right side. Single arched pedimented dormer window to the front pitch (LHS). Moulded cast-iron guttering supported on moulded sandstone eaves cornice, discharging to cast-iron downpipes. Painted rough-cast rendered walling with rock-faced ashlar sandstone toothed quoins, plinth course and window surrounds. Square-headed window openings with moulded sandstone sills and largely boarded up windows with a single 4/1 timber sash window visible to the north elevation only (although internal survey revealed several others remaining behind boards).

Front elevation is three bays wide with that to the right advanced and having a large Dutch-style gable all finished ashlar sandstone coping and dropped kneeler stones at eaves level. The first floor of the gabled projection has a Palladian style window opening with a blind semi-circular panel over the central light framed in flush sandstone toothed voussoirs. Tripartite window opening to the ground floor with sandstone sill, surround, frieze and cornice. To the NW re-entrant angle is a sandstone portico with squat Tuscan columns on rock-faced pedestals supporting rock-faced entablature and lead-lined hipped roof that curves at eaves. Square-headed door opening with flat-panelled timber door and rectangular over-light (boarded up) opens into the portico. Coffered underside to portico roof, with moulded timber cornice, painted.

Gabled north side elevation has randomly placed window openings to the left with a two-bay two-storey gabled return beyond with moulded cornice, cast iron guttering and downpipe, which steps in plan to narrower single storey duo-pitched abutment. Toothed quoins to main building. Chimney centred on apex, ashlar sandstone coping to gable and dropped kneelers as above.

Rear (W) elevation was not accessed although it is abutted by returns described above and another flat-roofed single-storey extension, wrapped around two sides of an enclosed courtyard to the southeast re-entrant corner is visible from the south; the roof contains modern domed and pyramidal sky-lights. A tall rendered chimney stack with moulded sandstone cornice and yellow clay pots rises from the eaves near to the hipped roof.

South side elevation has a single landscape window opening at ground floor and paired window openings to the first floor; ground floor window does not have sandstone surround (suggesting that it is perhaps a later addition). Toothed quoin to left side and tall rendered chimney to right side; the latter having moulded sandstone cornice and three clay pots as per other chimneys. Side elevation to single storey extension is blank, with rough-cast rendered walls to match main building, painted timber eaves board and asphalt sheet roofing.

Setting
Located on the east side of Church Street, the bank is detached and sits at the end of a row of modest two-storey terraced buildings that run southward from the cross-roads in the centre of the village; it overlooks the main car park (and former market square) within Claudy. Small front area enclosed to the street by a low rubble stone plinth wall with sandstone coping topped by decorative iron railings that span between square pillars. The north of the site is enclosed by a tall un-coursed rubble sandstone wall with rounded concrete coping.

Materials
Roof: Fibre cement artificial roof slates
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling: Painted rough-cast render / ashlar rock-faced sandstone dressings
Windows: Boarded up (4/1 timber sash to north side elevation)

Historical information

Described by J. J. Tracey as a ‘handsome Arts and Crafts style edifice’, the bank in Claudy was built to designs by G. W. Ferguson in 1898 (www.dia.ie). Rowan refers to its design as a ‘free mixture of Dutch gable, Palladian window, and pagoda-roofed Tuscan porch’. The town of Claudy developed mainly from the crossroads outwards as terraced buildings, and the bank appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Books in 1900 when it is identified as a house, bank, offices and yard leased by the Northern Banking Company from George Browne, the local landlord. The rateable value placed on the buildings was £50. Prior to 1900, part or all of land on which the bank was constructed was occupied by Tillie & Henderson’s Shirt Factory (plot reference No.26 in VAL/12/B/32/C), although it appears that, in 1900, the plot was subdivided with the bank taking the southernmost portion. The bank is labelled on the 1925 Ordnance Survey map as a detached building matching its current footprint with a further oblong structure to the rear, assumed to have been outbuildings. The Census of Ireland from 1901 records that Alfred Logan, Bank Manager, lived in The Bank with his family of seven and that it consisted of a 1st class dwelling with eighteen rooms and three out-offices. By 1911, the Bank Manager had changed to John Connolly.

The building ceased to be used as a bank from 1 June 2007. Plans submitted in 2008 proposed demolishing a single-storey extension to the rear and renovating the main building for retail units and apartments; a two-storey extension to the rear was also proposed. An updated planning application of this same scheme is currently lodged for consideration (2015).

References

Primary sources
1. PRONI, Valuation Revision Books, 1860-1929, VAL/12/B/32/5A-F
2. PRONI, Valuation map, 1895-c.1915, VAL/12/D/5/29E
3. NIEA, First Survey Card
4. NIEA, HB Records

Secondary sources
1. Alistair J. Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979)
2. J. J. Tracey, ‘The Village of Claudy’ in Review, no. 7 (1996), pp 14-17

Online sources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects (www.dia.ie)
2. Census of Ireland 1901 & 1911 (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/)
3. Planning NI Public Access (http://epicpublic.planningni.gov.uk/publicaccess/)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached two-storey with attic stone and rendered former bank, built c.1898, to the designs of G.W. Ferguson and located on Church Street in Claudy. The former bank displays the early twentieth-century use of freestyle, incorporating the Arts and Crafts with classical motifs and stands out as one of the more interesting buildings in the town centre. Largely characterised by its Dutch style gable, impressive portico and tapered chimneys, it exhibits good quality craftsmanship such as ashlar stonework. Although much interior fabric is lost, the original plan form survives together with a good portion of sliding sash windows behind boarded up openings. Originally designed to incorporate living quarters for the bank manager and his family, it remains an important example in the Arts & Crafts style that comfortably marries its commercial and domestic functions.
Much enhanced by stone walling and railings that define the boundary to Church Street, the building stands at the end of a terrace of modest scaled two-storey buildings and overlooks a large open public square once used as a cattle marke.