Description

SK 5804 SE
718/3/203

GRANBY STREET
Number 31, Former HSBC Bank

(Formerly listed as Number 31, HSBC)

20.09.1972

GV
II*
Former bank and attached wall and railings. 1872-1874, by Joseph Goddard of Leicester for the Leicestershire Bank. Carved detail by Samuel Barfield of Leicester. Mid and late C20 additions and alterations. Red brick, with Portland stone dressings and Welsh slate roofs. French Gothic Revival style. Windows are mainly plain lights, with stone mullions and transoms and polychrome heads in various forms.

Granby Street front has to right the banking hall, two storeys plus basement, three bays. Plinth, string courses, enriched modillion cornice and pointed arched pierced balustrade. Three tall cross-mullioned windows with quatrefoil pierced pointed arched heads and hood moulds. The windows are set in panels with dentillated heads, divided by pilasters, with flat headed basement openings below.

Corner entrance feature, single storey, has similar detailing and a low parapet. Pointed arched doorway with hoodmould, and cusped opening and double shafts. To right, a two-light pointed arched window, with central shaft. Left return, to Bishop Street, has a similar doorway flanked to left by a similar four-light window. Both doorways have original wrought iron gates, and matching linked railings extend across the Granby Street front and the first five bays of the Bishop Street front. Above the corner, a rectangular tower set diagonally, with modillion cornice and pierced balustrades, and very steep pitched pyramidal roof with modified crest. On the first floor, a semicircular stone bow window, six lights, with enriched parapet.

Bishop Street front has plinth, string course, cornice and balustrade with quatrefoils. Dormers with coped gables and traceried recesses. Recessed entrance bay, two windows, with doorway and overlight to right, and above it, a sham balustrade and a window with shafts to the transom and pointed arch with tracery and hood mould. To left, a two-light window with relieving arch, and above it, a two-light window with shafts to the transom and pointed arch with traceried roundel.

Right of the entrance bay, a four bay section, two storeys plus basement and attics, with four similar two-light windows under segmental relieving arches. Above, four similar windows with panelled aprons and pointed arches with hood moulds. Left of the entrance bay, a section with two similar three-light windows on each floor. Each of these sections has two dormers, three lights to right, two lights to left. Beyond, to left, a recessed bay, two storeys plus attics, two windows, with on each floor a similar single window to right and two-light window to left, under segmental relieving arches. Dormer above, three lights.

Projecting corner bay to left has a similar three-light window on each floor, the upper window with cusped heads, both under segmental relieving arches. Steep pitched pyramidal roof with dormer, two lights.

Frontage to Town Hall Square, three bays, has similar three-light windows to right and less elaborate cross-mullioned windows to left. The frontage is largely enclosed by an original boundary wall with plinth, panelling and coping, and a pair of square gatepiers with ball finials. At the rear, later C20 additions, single storey, filling a former courtyard.

INTERIOR:Outstanding full-height banking hall, rendered, six by three bays, divided by pilasters into pointed arched recesses. Sill and impost bands and cornices. The long sides are blank, and the short sides have each three windows with elaborately patterned stained glass, possibly not original. On the west side, a red sandstone arcade with moulded segmental arches on square piers with corner shafts and foliage capitals. Elaborate cross-beamed clerestorey roof with traceried lights, arcading above the girder beam, and queen post trusses with curved braces. Arch braces to granite wall shafts on corbels with shields. The original counter front and several multi-panelled doors with moulded doorcases remain. Ground floor offices combined and refitted late C20. Open well staircase with stick balusters and chamfered square newels with ball finials. Ancillary rooms, some combined or divided, have cornices and patterned stained glass. One panelled matchboard ceiling. Attics have some exposed trusses with cast iron shoes and tie rods. Basement has brick jack arches on riveted iron girders, and segmental brick vaults.

Listing NGR: SK5888704362

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• ISKCON Leicester at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17553655

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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