Description

WORCESTER

SO8455SE THE CROSS
620-1/12/599 (East side)
05/04/71 No.3
(Formerly Listed as:
THE CROSS
(East side)
Premises occupied by
National Provincial Bank)

GV II

Banking hall, now café/coffee shop. 1900 with later
alterations and restorations. Portland stone ashlar facade
with returns of red brick with ashlar dressings; concealed
roof; rear left brick stack; cast-iron balconies. Rich
classical design. Ashlar details: rusticated plinth, then
horizontal rustication, aprons below windows have swags,
rustication drawn into voussoirs with stepped keystones over
windows and keystones interrupt egg and dart frieze;
first-floor band surmounted by end pillars with horizontal
rustication and two half-engaged Ionic columns in antis with
quarter-engaged Ionic column responds, egg and dart frieze,
cornice with modillions, balustrade with bulbous vase
balusters. Ground floor: entrance at left: 8-panel double
doors; above this a multi-pane oculus with carved laurel
wreath surround and cartouche below. 2 segmental-arched
windows with wooden transoms and upper mullion. First floor:
6/6 sashes with fruit and drapery swags to aprons in eared
architrave with moulded sills and stepped keystones. Ashlar
details continue to first bay of returns; first floor ashlar
band. Left (north) return: 7 first-floor windows. To left bay
are three staircase windows, 1/1 and two 6/6 sashes in ashlar
breakforward and with eared architraves and keystones. To
second, fourth, fifth and sixth windows are 6/6 sashes on
brick aprons rising from first-floor band and in eared
architraves with moulded sills and keystones. Otherwise the
third and seventh windows are multi-pane lights and overlights
in chanelled ashlar surrounds with cavetto-moulding and swags
with cartouche over, cornices on scrolled consoles and with
swags. Crowning frieze has egg and dart moulding and
modillions over these windows, otherwise pulvinated frieze and
cornice (except to left two bays) and balustrades over third
and seventh bays, otherwise blind parapet and cornice. Ground
floor: second, third and seventh windows are round-arched,
otherwise segmental-arched. Second window has brick head and
stepped tall keystone; third and seventh bays have lower, rough-hewn
rustication, aprons with swags to and horizontally rusticated
breakforward around windows, drawn into voussoirs, egg and
dart frieze and central scrolled corbel with acanthus moulding
supports shallow bowed balcony. 2 balconies have bowed bars
and end urn finials. Right (south) return to Trinity Passage:
similar, but with less ashlar detailing.
INTERIOR: dogleg staircase at rear, left has cast-iron
balustrade. plasterwork and joinery remain to ground floor,
including architraves with keystones, panelling, cornices.
Otherwise not inspected.
HISTORICAL NOTE: A notable example of Edwardian classicism.
Forms part of a significant group of listed buildings
including Premises occupied by Lloyds Bank, Premises occupied
by Bradford and Bingley Building Society, Former Church of St
Nicholas and Nos 20, 21, 28 and 31, The Cross (qqv). These all
form an important visual frame for this entrance to the city.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26669599

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)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)