Trustee Savings Bank,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey multi-bay limestone and brick former bank, built c. 1920, located at the corner of a triangular block of buildings at the junction of Castle Street and Castle Place, Strabane. The building is wedge-shaped on plan, with flat frontispiece.

Roof is concealed by a painted lead-covered blocking course over moulded stone cornice with raised section to front incised with gold lettering: ‘Established 1824’. Rainwater goods are internal. Walling is band-rusticated ashlar Portland stone to ground floor, with openings framed by piers supporting a plain frieze and cornice; piers extend in banded brick and ashlar stone to frame upper floors openings; ashlar stone ornamentation detailed with elevations (below). Windows are single-paned hardwood replacements to upper floors, those to first floor with ashlar mullions and transoms, those to second floor with mullions only; window apron to upper floors are brick. Ground floor has plate glass shop windows with bullnosed splayed sills throughout.

Entrance elevation faces west and is extremely narrow, consisting of a flattened ‘wedge’ end. The replacement entrance door is framed by plain Portland stone pilasters surmounted by a segmental pediment (over frieze with incised letters: ‘BANK’) carried on moulded corbels, all accessed by two stone steps. First floor has a bowed bay with cast-concrete half-domed roof and containing a tripartite mullioned and transomed window. Second floor has three closely spaced windows with brick band over.

North elevation has a two-window-wide pedimented projection to upper floors at right end, carried on corbelled brackets breaking ground floor frieze. There are windows to first floor only, each set in a double-height round-headed recess with Portland stone tympanum and having alternating brick and ashlar voussoirs with keyblock. To its left, there are three further windows to each floor. Ground floor is four windows wide with four-panelled timber door accessed by three concrete steps to left end; timber panel over.

Rear elevation is abutted by a lower two-storey building; exposed upper floor is plainly detailed in brick and is blank.

South elevation is identical to north (in reverse).

Roof: Concealed (blocking course)
Walling: Portland stone and brick
Windows: Replacement hardwood, stone mullion and transom
RWG: Internal

Historical information

A previous building is shown on the Town Plan of Strabane in 1908. This earlier property is recorded in the Valuation Revisions as a “Licensed House,” occupied by James McElwain and leased from the Duke of Abercorn. In 1921, the property is deleted as it is “pulled down and [is] site of new bank,” in 1922 the bank is noted as “in progress.”

Rowan dates the building to 1922, describing it as “a three storey mannerist composition in Portland stone and red brick by H. Seaver.” (Rowan, p. 496).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/5/1-First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/5/2-Second Edition OS Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/3 -Third Edition OS Map (1905)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/41 Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
5. PRONI VAL12/E/1/187/1-12 -Town Plan of Strabane (1874-1908)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/42/31A-M -Valuation Revisions (1860-1931)

Secondary Sources

1. Rowan, Alistair. “North West Ulster: Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Tyrone.” Buildings of Ireland Series. Dublin: Penguin Books, 1979.
2. “The Sperrins: A Hidden Beauty.” Omagh: Tyrone Constitution, undated.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A prominently-located former purpose-built bank, built 1922 to designs by Henry Seaver. The bank occupies an unusual wedge-shaped site in the centre of Strabane, reflected in the unusual shape and remaining internal layout of the building. The building displays bold polychrome detailing in Portland stone and red brick, and ornamentation is in a mannered classical style. Despite the loss of internal detailing, it remains an impressive landmark and is representative of the early-twentieth-century commercial development of Strabane.