Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 2 June 2023 to amend the name and address, and to reformat the text to current standards

TQ3104SW
577-1/40/603

BRIGHTON
NORTH STREET (North side)
Nos 155-158

(Formerly listed as Nos.155-158 (Consecutive) National Westminster Bank)

23/06/94

GV
II

Bank. 1921-3 by FCR Palmer (with Clayton & Black as executive architects). Extended 1960-2 in matching style by BC Sherren. Stone. Mansard roof of slate.

EXTERIOR: six-window range with three-window range return; single-corner range on chamfer of rectangular plan. Storeys and dormers over basement. The massing and details are reminiscent of late Louis C16 design, with the proportions and details stylized. Flat-arched entrance to banking hall on corner with architrave surmounted by entablature with projecting cornice, the latter supported by a pair of console brackets; the area above the entrance filled by bas relief carving of arms on an escutcheon, above which a Diocletian window which has a keystone carved as a female head and spandrels decorated with swags of autumnal fruits.

To either side of the corner range an elliptical escutcheon with a laurel and palm frond border. At each party wall an entrance to office areas. Each round-arched, ground-floor window has a historiated keystone, deep splayed reveals and sills. The ground-floor treated as shallow banded rustication, including the window jambs. Storey band treated as an entablature and stops short of range nearest each party wall; the window in this range is rather plain, thus concentrating the design further around the corner; the decorated entablature frieze now obscured by late C20 sign fascia. All first-floor windows are flat arched with architraves and keyed lintels; the walls between each window covered by delicate ribbon ornament on a shallow panel, a treatment which gives the impression that the first floor is recessed behind a short, squat pilastrade.

Above projecting cornice with balustraded parapet, behind which one flat-arched dormer for each window range, each dormer with eared architrave and cornice.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

The whole forms a group with other C20 commercial buildings in North Street, including Nos 153 (qv), 163 (qv) and Nos 166-169 The Norwich Union Insurance Building (qv).

(Brighton Polytechnic: A Guide to the Buildings of Brighton: Macclesfield: 1985-: 57).

Listing NGR: TQ3108004263

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• 155–158 North Street, Brighton at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q4550560

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

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey