Former Bank of England

Details

BRISTOL

ST5873SE BROAD STREET, Centre 901-1/11/522 (South West side) 08/01/59 Nos.13 AND 14 Former Bank of England (Formerly Listed as: BROAD STREET (South side) Nos.12 AND 14 Old Bank of England)

GV I

Bank, now offices. 1844-47. By CR Cockerell. Limestone ashlar, roof not visible. Greek Revival style. L-shaped with a central banking hall, right-hand rear block with a stair well between. 3 storeys; 1:3-window range. A compressed, symmetrical front with a left-hand 1-window section of different design. The main part set back between narrow end buttresses up to attic impost band, with outer porches in the re-entrant linked by a low wall and railings; giant distyle-in-antis Greek Doric attached columns to an entablature with triglyphs that ends in triglyph consoles on the buttresses, beneath a deep cornice. Outer sections are banded. Tall pedimented attic set back between the buttresses, banded up to the impost band of pilasters to semicircular-arched recesses with hoodmoulds, containing similar arches with French windows. The porches are banded to the upper half, with battered, eared architraves to double 6-panel doors, with small roundels. Tall ground-floor cross windows with recessed roll mouldings to cills, mullions and transoms, a band above between the columns with Greek key, and narrow second-floor windows with moulded cills and sliding 2/2-pane sashes. The left-hand section is symmetrical with fluted Corinthian attached columns to an entablature, broken forward with rosettes above the columns, a central panelled shaft, blocked with an inserted window to the right, and open to a through passage to Albion Chambers (qv) to the left. Full-width tripartite windows above have guilloche strips between archtraves, acanthus sill blocks, and consoles to first-floor cornice and second-floor pediment, with Vitruvian scroll to the lintels and anthemia below the second-floor cill. The left-hand rear return has a bowed stair section facing onto Albion Chambers, and a right-hand return stained glass stair light. INTERIOR: central banking hall much altered with an inserted ceiling, with a right-hand hall entered from the porch extending into the left-hand section, with crested mid cornice, coved ceiling with shallow arched coffering with star pattern, and cast-iron colonnettes with foliate capitals above the alleyway up to the ceiling; rear block has a linking stair well, bowed to the left, cantilevered stone open dogleg winder stair, ornate paired cast-iron balusters; plain fire surrounds with cast-iron doors, panelled shutters and 4-panel doors. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron spike-headed railings between the porchs, and to the cornice in front of the attic with palmettes, and double cast-iron scrolls over the doorways. Cockerell designed the Bristol branch of the Bank of England between those for Manchester and Liverpool, and all derived from his Westminster Life Office in the Strand. Graeco-Roman design of great power and gravity making use of the intercolumniation of the portico for wide windows to light the banking hall, the third storey being squeezed in between the peidiment and cornices. The contrasting side section presumably narrows the design and keeps the width in proportion to the height. Formerly with railings matching the front to the ground-floor windows. (The Builder: London: 488 & 549; Crick C: Victorian Buildings in Bristol: Bristol: 1975-: 2; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 426; Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-).

Listing NGR: ST5882473086

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

379004

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, (1958), 426
Gomme, A H, Jenner, M, Little, B D G, Bristol, An Architectural History, (1979)
Crick, C, Victorian Buildings in Bristol, (1975), 2
The Builder, (12 December 1930), 488
The Builder, (12 December 1930), 549

End of official list entry

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