Northern Bank

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Attached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey stucco-fronted Italianate former Assembly Rooms, built c.1776, remodelled by Charles Lanyon c.1845 as Belfast Bank and extended to the rear by W.H. Lynn in 1875 with a further link block added c.1919 to the designs of Tulloch and Fitzsimmons.

Concealed pyramidal mansard natural slate roof with lead ridges and surmounted by a copper-topped louvred lantern. Flat roofs to remaining blocks with cast-iron hoppers and downpipes breaking through below the first floor frieze. Roof set behind balustrade parapet wall and a single lead-lined dormer to the front pitch. Painted ruled-and-lined stucco walling, channel-rusticated to the ground floor with moulded plinth course rising to moulded ground floor sill course. Vermiculated rusticated quoins to ground floor, rusticated quoins to the upper floor with a guilloche-type panelled frieze and drip cornice over the ground floor, continuous moulded sill course to the first floor and a floral panelled frieze over the first floor surmounted by a deep crown cornice supported by scrolled console brackets having floral panels. Square-headed window openings with horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows.

Symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with a central segmental-headed entrance and a shallow prostyle Doric portico. Voussoired heads to the ground floor windows with panelled aprons and cast-iron sill guards. Corinthian aediculated window openings to the first floor with pierced stucco balconettes supported on scrolled brackets punctuating the ground floor frieze. Stepped surround to central door opening with scrolled keystone and decorative double-leaf panelled bronze doors with bronze overpanel having raised lettering; ‘BELFAST BANKING COMPANY LTD’. Door opening flanked by Doric columns and responding pilasters on raised plinths supporting hood cornice and balustrade over with elaborately carved Belfast coat of arms. Portico enclosed to the street by concertina iron gates.

Symmetrical west side elevation is five windows wide, detailed as per front elevation with a central blind opening to the ground floor. Extended by a three-storey block to the northwest, having walling details as per the principal block without the balustrade parapet and floral panelled frieze; Crown cornice without brackets. Square-headed window openings with architrave surrounds to the first floor and horizontally-glazed 2/2 steel windows. Projecting angled side entrance porch to the re-entrant angle between the principal block and the extension having a square-headed door opening with architrave surround and double-leaf hardwood doors. The side elevation to the principal block is enclosed by iron railings c.1920.

Plain rendered rear elevations with blocked up window openings to the northwest block only with a brick chimneystack to the west and a further profiled rendered chimneystack to the east.

The east side elevation to the northeast rear block is two windows wide and three-storey with attic. Paired window openings to this elevation having architrave surrounds, 6/6 timber sash windows to the attic-storey, single-pane to the remainder, those to the first and second floors divided by a slender colonettes with Giant Ionic order pilasters framing each bay supporting architrave and modillioned crown cornice, returning to the side elevation. The pilasters rise from apron blocks and part channel-rusticated first floor with vermiculated quoins. Plain stucco-fronted ground floor with Doric pilasters framing the window openings supporting a full-span frieze and cornice, returning to the side elevation.

Two-storey link building is three windows wide with a round-headed door opening to the right and shallow prostyle Ionic portico. Roof hidden behind solid parapet wall with moulded coping and drip cornice. Walling details as per principal elevation with continuous moulded sill courses. Lugged architrave surrounds with keystones to first floor window openings, voussoir-headed to the ground floor. Door opening has oversized voussoirs with an original double-leaf hardwood panelled door and semi-circular fanlight with decorative iron grille. Door opening flanked by Ionic pilasters responding to Ionic columns having bell-flowers and sharing raised plinths, supporting balustrade hood with decorative iron gates.

East side elevation of main block is five windows wide, detailed as per west side elevation.

Setting:
Located at the junction of four streets on a prominent city centre site facing Bridge Street.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Stucco
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

Originally built in 1776 as Belfast’s Exchange, the current building has undergone several phases of remodelling over the years, with little original fabric remaining from that time. The Exchange Buildings were the focal point of the town from the time they were first constructed and were used to denote the centre of Belfast for the purposes of measuring distances on milestones. (Simpson) The building is shown on the first edition OS map of 1832-3.

Donegall Street was originally laid out in the 1750s following the building of a second brown linen hall on the site of what is now St Anne’s Cathedral. The ‘Exchange’ was erected shortly afterwards in 1769 at the bottom of Donegall Street as a one-storey building with arcades of five arches on each side. Seven years later in 1776 a second floor was added known as the Assembly Room (Historical Retrospect). The architect, at least of the interior, was Robert Taylor assisted by a Mr Cooper. Brett doubts that the exterior, built of stone from Dunmurry, was the work of Taylor as it was ‘in the highest degree unassuming’. (Brett) Samuel Kirke was engaged to carry out carving, but Brett notes that Kirke employed another man, James Forbes, to carry out the work while he drank himself to death (Brett). An aquatint of the interior by Thomas Malton survives and is reproduced by Larmour.

The assembly rooms were paid for by the Fifth Earl of Donegall, Arthur Chichester, and are the sole survivor of a number of buildings erected by the Earl on which he spent over £20,000. (Lanyon; Historical Retrospect) Brett has called the architect, Robert Taylor, who was knighted shortly afterwards ‘one of the last and greatest of the English Palladians, then at the height of his fame’. The upper rooms consisted of a large Assembly Room sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, with an adjoining Card Room and Tea Room, each 32 feet by 22 feet. The Assembly Room hosted a famous ‘Meeting of Harpers’ from 11th to 14th July 1792 when Wolfe Tone was in the audience and Edward Bunting, the assistant organist at St Anne’s Church, transcribed many of the ancient Irish airs and saved them for posterity. (Simpson) Henry Joy McCracken was tried in the Assembly Room on 17th July 1798 and sentenced to be hanged in front of the market house at 5 pm on the same day. (Simpson)

The ground floor of the exchange was originally fitted out with stalls to accommodate traders but in 1820 the Commercial Buildings were built on an adjacent site in Waring Street and the merchants moved to the new building. (Simpson) By 1823 the exchange or market house on the ground floor was no longer being used for mercantile purposes but the Assembly Room above continued to be used for town meetings or for public exhibitions and entertainments (Benn). A ‘Belfast Fancy Ball’ was held on 6th October 1830 attended by the Marquess of Donegall and quadrilles and waltzes were kept up until two in the morning when the party of 270 ‘retired to a magnificent entertainment in the spacious piazza below’ (Belfast Newsletter October 8th 1830).

In the early 1830s the ground floor was converted into shops, Graham & Co’s hat shop being shown on a lease of 1840 on the Donegall Street side and ‘Mr Scott’s seed shop’ on the North Street side. Scott Brothers were seedsmen, nurserymen and florists with an extensive stock of forest and fruit trees and shrubs, also green-house, stove and herbaceous plants and were agents for agricultural implements, fencing, netting, artificial guano and compost. (Belfast Newsletter 1st December 1843)

The Belfast Bank had the building remodelled to designs by Charles Lanyon in 1845 and opened in the Exchange on Monday 25th May 1846. They had previously occupied a house on the opposite side of Donegall Street which was originally (1809) the premises of the Commercial Bank who merged with the Belfast Bank in 1827. The old premises became inadequate for their increasing volume of business and a move became necessary. After protracted negotiations with Scott Brothers it was arranged that they would swap with the Bank and occupy its old premises (Simpson).

Lanyon encased the building in Italian-style stucco, adopting the palazzo style pioneered by Sir Charles Barry in London. Brett calls this the first building in Ireland to adopt the international Renaissance Revival and judges it ‘one of the handsomest and most satisfactory buildings in Belfast’. A contemporary was similarly impressed stating that ‘It has been so much altered and beautified as to have undergone a complete metamorphosis from a large pile of unseemly black brick to one of the handsomest architectural ornaments of the town’. (Brett)

In 1874 arrangements for extending to the bank to the North Street side were underway, the architect employed being W H Lynn, a former apprentice of Lanyon’s and soon to be regarded as Belfast’s leading architect. In 1881 one of the two galleries which was all that remained of the upper floor of the building was in danger of collapse and had to be propped up with an oak truss. In the later 1880s the bank concluded that the building had outlived its usefulness and attempted to take over a site on the corner of Donegall Place and Donegall Square South to build new premises. The deal fell through, however, and W H Lynn was engaged in 1895 to remodel the interior to give more space, at which time much of Sir Robert Taylor’s original work was destroyed. (Simpson) The bank was extended on Donegall Street in 1919 to designs by Tulloch & Fitzsimons, who also raised the roof of Lanyon’s block, adding a lantern to the top and in 1956-9 further extensions were constructed along North Street by architects G P and R H Bell (Patton; Larmour).
In 1965 some departments of the bank moved into the Commercial Buildings opposite and alterations and renovations were carried out between 1966 and 68, increasing directors’ accommodation and extending the staff canteen. In 1969 the bank won a trophy from the Central Gardens Association for Northern Ireland for the best-kept large building in the city of Belfast. (Simpson)

In 1970 the Belfast Banking Co merged with the Northern Banking Co to form the Northern Bank who remained in the current building until at least the 1990s. The former bank has been vacant for some years, finding an occasional use as an arts’ venue (Simpson).

References:

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 Annual Revisions (1863-1930)
6. Belfast Newsletter October 8th 1830
7. Belfast Newsletter 1st December 1843

Secondary Sources

1. Benn, G “A History of the town of Belfast” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2008 (First published in 1880)
2. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of Belfast 1700-1914” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, revised edition 1985
3. Brett, C.E.B. “Court Houses and Market Houses of the Province of Ulster” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1973
4. Larmour, P “Belfast, An Illustrated Architectural Guide” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1987
5. Millin, S Shannon “Historical Retrospect Belfast Exchange” Belfast: W & G Baird, 1937
6. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
7. Simpson, N “The Belfast Bank 1827-1970” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1975
8. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Attached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey stucco-fronted Italianate former Assembly Rooms, built c1776. Remodelled to designs by Charles Lanyon c1845 as Belfast Bank and extended to the rear to designs by W H Lynn in 1875 with a further link block added c1919 to the designs of Tulloch & Fitzsimmons. The former bank is of great historical importance in the City and is often cited as Belfast’s earliest public building. Built as the Old Exchange building, later occupied as the Assembly Rooms, the current appearance dates from Lanyon’s remodelling for use as the Belfast Bank. Much historic fabric and detailing survive, including the elaborate double-height reception complete with galleries, illustrating the development of the building and representing its history in the civic life of Belfast. Of note as one of Lanyon’s earliest Belfast projects and one that helped establish his reputation..