Description

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET
842-1/5/128 (North side)
19/03/73 No.68
Bank House
(Formerly Listed as:
HIGH STREET
(North side)
Old Bank House)

GV II

Office building with shops; formerly a bank. Mid C19, possibly
incorporating earlier fabric. Solid rendered front. Roof not
visible from street. Rendered chimney on right gable-end.
Double-depth plan, 2 rooms wide, with rear stair compartment
to centre and rear left wing.
3 storeys with basement; symmetrical 5-window range.
Segmental-headed centre doorway with inset columns having
foliated capitals; enriched imposts; moulded archivolt with
large carved keystone. Shop front at either side, probably
mid/late C19. Upper-storey windows segmental-headed with
bracketed sills and moulded architraves; plain sashes.
Flanking the whole front a pair of horizontally-channelled
pilasters rising to a moulded top cornice. Tall parapet,
rising in centre over raised inscription BANK HOUSE.
INTERIOR: early C18-style wooden staircase with turned
balusters and broad flat handrail; probably not original,
certainly with C19 or C20 features. First-floor rooms have C19
moulded cornices; good grey marble chimneypiece with original
round-arched iron grate in rear right-hand room. Second floor
has good mid/late C19 chimneypieces with iron grates. Back
staircase, now leading up from first floor of No 67, has
re-set early C18 balustrade with turned balusters and heavy
moulded handrail; opposing balustrade is C19 in roughly
similar style.
Directories of 1870 and 1878 show the West of England and
South Wales District Bank at this address; bank-vaults are
said to survive in the basement. The site is not marked as a
bank on the 1st-edition 25in OS Map, surveyed in 1886.

Listing NGR: SS4528626621

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26571830

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)