Description

BARNSTAPLE

SS5533SE THE SQUARE
684-1/7/234 (North side)
31/12/73 Old Employment Exchange
(Formerly Listed as:
THE SQUARE
(North side)
Employment Exchange)

GV II

Bank, now shops and studio. Probably about 1850-60, re-roofed
in 1880s. For the West of England and South Wales District
Bank. Limestone ashlar on a granite ashlar plinth; red brick
side walls. Slated mansard roof. 2 limestone ashlar chimneys
with bracketed cornices and shaped tops. Red brick chimney at
rear (visible from Boutport Street), also with bracketed stone
cornice.
Ground floor seems to have consisted of a single large room,
presumably the banking hall, with offices in the front
right-hand corner. Entrance passage at far right-hand end
leading to staircase at rear. Classical mostly Italianate
style.
3 storeys with garret. 3-window range to The Square, 2 windows
to Boutport Street. Rusticated ground storey with vermiculated
quoins and surrounds to openings. 2 round-arched windows in
each front, together with round-arched doorways on rounded
corner and at right-hand end of front to The Square. Moulded
string course at impost-level. Plain window with transom
lights. 3-panelled double doors on corner; 6-panelled door to
stair hall. Dentilled cornice above ground storey. Pulvinated
frieze and cornice above 2nd storey. Heavily bracketed top
cornice and blocking-course.
2nd-storey windows have plain surrounds and cornices on
consoles, except for plain right-hand window facing The
Square; the other 2 windows on this side are of 3 lights.
3rd-storey windows, 4 to The Square and 2 to Boutport Street,
have moulded architraves slightly buttressed at the front.
Plain sashes in both upper storeys.
The rounded corner has a plain shaped panel in the 2nd storey
and a pair of shields with coats of arms in the 3rd storey. 3
dormer windows towards The Square, 2 to Boutport Street; all
have triangular pediments bracketed at the front and sides.
INTERIOR only ground floor inspected. Main room has panelled
walls and ceiling; enriched soffits to beams; both this and
the former office have modillioned cornices. Entrance passage
has similar cornice, together with chandelier boss.
Geometrical wood staircase with slender turned balusters,
carved step-ends, the balustrade voluted at the foot.
HISTORICAL NOTE: erected for the West of England and South
Wales District Bank, which opened a branch in Bridge Buildings
on the west side of The Square in 1845, moving to the present
site 'some years later'. The bank failed in 1878 and was
replaced in 1880 by a branch of the Devon and Cornwall Bank.
This was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 1906.
(Gardiner WP: Barnstaple, 1837-97: Barnstaple: 1897-: 238; The
Dark Horse (Lloyds Bank house magazine): July 1941: 1941-:
281).

Listing NGR: SS5588933032

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26665149

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

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)