Lloyds Bank, 1-7 Queen Street, Ramsgate, Kent

Summary

A two-storey bank originally built for Hammond & Company Canterbury bank 1895-1896 to designs by Stenning & Jennings of Canterbury and extended in 1929 for Lloyds Bank, probably by TN Wilson.

Description

A two-storey bank originally built for Hammond & Company Canterbury bank 1895-1896 to designs by Stenning & Jennings of Canterbury and extended in 1929 for Lloyds Bank, probably by TN Wilson.

MATERIALS: external walls of Whitbed Portland ashlar and Hopton Wood stone, with iron glazing bars to the ground-floor windows. Inside, concrete floors are supported on iron girders.

PLAN: the principal volume is rectangular on plan, with a canted corner between the two street elevations on Queen Street and High Street. A rear range extends northwards on the west side of the building. The original part of the building comprises the central five bays to Queen Street; in 1929 the building was extended with an additional two bays to each end, plus the canted corner and three-bay return elevation to High Street.

EXTERIOR: the building presents a neo-classical palazzo frontage to Queen Street: two storeys on a plinth and eight bays wide, with a ninth bay forming a canted corner wrapping around to the three-bay return elevation on High Street. The canted corner now forms the main entrance, with double-panelled doors of timber and iron tracery to the semi-circular fanlight. A single door of similar design is situated at the west end of the Queen Street elevation. The central three bays of this elevation project forward, with an open pediment on curved brackets framing the original entrance, which has the same details as the other entrance. Above this is a classical pediment carried on Corinthian half-columns. The ground floor is rusticated with round-headed arched windows and with a lintel band above. These ground-floor windows have iron glazing bars. The first floor has square-headed sash windows enriched with acanthus tympana above another, smaller lintel band. The first floor is topped by a moulded acanthus frieze, a modillion eaves cornice and a parapet. The arms of the City of Canterbury and of Ramsgate are incorporated into each of the pediments facing Queen Street.

History

Ramsgate is situated on the east coast of the Isle of Thanet, facing France and the Low Countries. Originating as a fishing village within the medieval parish of St Laurence, Ramsgate’s development from the C16 was driven by the strategic importance of its coastal port. Ramsgate became associated with the Cinque Ports as a limb of Sandwich from the C14. Late C17 trade with Russia and the Baltic resulted in a wave of investment and rebuilding in the town. In 1749 the construction of a harbour of refuge from storms in the North Sea and Channel was approved, and a cross wall and inner basin were completed in 1779 to the design of John Smeaton. Later improvements included a lighthouse of 1794-1795 by Samuel Wyatt and a clock house of 1817 by Wyatt and George Louch. From the mid-C18, Ramsgate became increasingly popular as a seaside resort, its expansion being accelerated by road improvements and faster sea passage offered by hoys, packets and steamers. During the Napoleonic Wars, Ramsgate became a busy garrison town and a major port of embarkation. The arrival of the South Eastern Railway’s branch line in 1846 opened up Ramsgate to mass tourism and popular culture, bringing a range of inexpensive, lively resort facilities. New schools, hospitals and services were also built. The thriving town attracted diverse faith communities; Moses Montefiore founded a synagogue and a religious college at East Cliff Lodge, while AWN Pugin St Augustine’s Church and the Grange as part of an intended Catholic community on the West Cliff. Ramsgate remained a popular holiday destination until the advent of cheap foreign travel in the post-war decades. Falling visitor numbers were exacerbated by the decline of the town’s small trades and industries, fishing and boat-building. However, a ferry and hovercraft port and the large marina created in the inner harbour in the 1970s have continued to bring life to the area.

In England, banking was the preserve of goldsmiths up until the late C17. Sir Richard Hoare (1648-1719) is considered to be the ‘father of the banking profession’ and the Bank of England was established in 1694. During the C18 banks (like warehouses) were private houses with business rooms on the ground floor. Banks were built in great numbers to fuel the economy in the C19. Image and appearance mattered, with outward impressiveness being pursued as the embodiment of reliability, confidence and security. After the financial reforms of the 1840s, banks began to assume a more standard guise: as with exchanges, the common formula for larger banks is a grand entrance leading into a banking hall with offices off to the side. Italianate or Renaissance designs became the favoured idiom, with effort being concentrated on front elevations and public areas, above all the banking hall. Rear areas tend to be much more utilitarian, with increasingly sophisticated strong rooms; employees often lived above banks for security reasons. C20 banks retained their prominence on the high street, embodying solidity and respectability. Classical designs gave way to more contextual styles, with neo-Georgian a particular favourite by the 1920s.

Lloyds Bank has its origins in Birmingham, where in June 1765 two successful local businessmen, John Taylor and Sampson Lloyd, founded along with their two sons a private firm called Taylors & Lloyds – Birmingham’s first bank. The association with the Taylor family ended in 1852 and the firm changed its name to Lloyds & Company, and then to Lloyds Banking Company Limited when it became a joint-stock company in 1865. In the following 50 years, Lloyds took over more than 200 banks, expanding from the Midlands into London in the 1880s. In 1918 the acquisition of Capital & Counties Bank came with an additional 473 branches, cementing Lloyds’ position as one of the ‘Big Five’ high street banks.

The Ramsgate branch of Lloyds Bank occupies the former site of a circulating library and a small bank, established before 1785 and in 1808 respectively, by Peter Burgess. The bank was absorbed into the South Eastern Banking Company in 1864 but failed two years later in the Panic of 1866. The adjoining Waterloo House was purchased in 1894 by the Hammond & Co Canterbury Bank and demolished, making way for the first phase of the present building. The Canterbury Bank commissioned Messrs Stenning & Jennings of Canterbury, who designed a neo-classical palazzo building comprising the central five bays of the present Queen Street frontage. Construction was carried out by Messrs WW Martin and Sons of Ramsgate. By 1929 the branch had become part of Lloyds Bank, and the building was extended with an additional two bays to either side, the final bay on the east side forming a canted corner to meet a return extension of three bays facing High Street, all continuing the palazzo treatment. The two secondary entrances originally positioned on either side of the Queen Street portico were pushed out to the ends of that elevation. Some sources attribute this second phase to architect TN Wilson.

Reasons for Listing

Lloyds Bank, built in 1895 and extended in 1929, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a striking and neatly-detailed building with a powerful presence on a prominent corner site;
* it stands as a well-executed example of a bank of this period built in the favoured Italianate style.

Historic interest:

* as one of several banks built in the centre of Ramsgate in the decades either side of 1900, the building helps to convey the history of both the town’s expansion and the proliferation of bank buildings in the late C19.

Group value:

* with a number of other historic buildings ranging from the late C17 to the early C20 around the crossroads formed by High Street, Queen Street, King Street and Harbour Street.

External Links

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