Midland Bank

Cadw's description

Location

On the corner with Berriew Street.

History

The bank was built in 1876, on a site previously occupied by a timber framed building with gable facing onto Broad Street. Purpose-built for the North and South Wales Bank, which became the Midland in 1908.

Exterior

Brick with stone dressings and tiled roofs. Gothic style. 3 storeys, single window range to Broad Street, canted angle with turret corbelled out above the ground floor, and 5- window return range to Berriew Street, including a lower wing. Ground floors articulated by continuous hood moulds over the openings forming a series of shallow arches, mirroring the moulded arched heads of the openings. Doorway to right of Broad Street elevation, with panelled doors and mullioned overlight; 3-light mullioned and transomed window alongside it. 2-pane sash window in upper storey with raised brick panelled architrave hood, and continuous strong course. 2-pane sash above, partly in steeply gabled dormer, which has arched recessed panel containing Prince of Wales feathers in relief, and which is linked to the high coping of the right-hand gable by a horizontal buttress. Corner turret sprung from deep brick corbelling to ground floor has 3-light mullioned and transomed window to first floor, and wood mullioned window below the polygonal spirelet of its roof, surmounted by a finial. Berriew Street elevation has 2 similarly detailed bays, the sill bands and string courses linking both elevations across the angle turret. Upper window in hipped roofed dormer. Beyond this, the building is stepped back in plan, the re-entrant angle chamfered, with a corbelled stack occupying the angle above the ground floor. Narrower bay to the left of the angle has 2-light mullioned window in segmentally arched recess to ground floor, and 2-pane sash window on each floor above, the upper window partly in a steep gabled dormer. The string courses over the ground floor continue into the slightly lower rear wing, which has shouldered passage entry to the left, and 3-light mullioned and transomed window to the right of a central stepped moulded arched doorway (now blocked). Mullioned and transomed segmentally arched upper windows of 2 and 3 lights. 2x2-pane sash windows into hipped dormers above, the eaves oversailing the stepped cornice, and the sill band stepped to continue with the band of the main range.

Interior

Main banking hall retains heavy wood panelled counters and dado panelling, with ribbed plaster ceiling divided by heavy beams with brackets sprung from corbels.

Reason for designation

A good example of late C19 gothic commercial architecture retaining its original character virtually intact, and forming a prominent feature of the townscape