Description

Before 1860. 3-storey and attic, 5-bay astylar Renaissance office building with shops at ground, in irregular terrace. Narrow ashlar bands, rusticated quoins and ashlar dressings. Ground floor frieze and cornice, 2nd floor cill course, eaves cornice and blocking course. Keystoned, roundheaded door; architraved openings to ground and 1st floor, tabbed margins to 2nd floor.

NE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: centre bay at ground with consoled cornice over keystoned moulded doorpiece and panelled timber door with deep 2-part semicircular fanlight, display window to each flanking bay with fielded pilaster beyond giving way to 2-leaf panelled timber door and outer console to cornice. Regular fenestration to each floor above, slightly reduced openings to 2nd floor, and 2 pedimented dormer windows toward outer bays, 2 modern rooflights.

SW (REAR) ELEVATION: window to 1st and 2nd floors of tall circular stair tower breaking eaves in bay to left of centre, regular fenestration above ground in 2 bays to right and modern rooflight above.

4-pane glazing pattern, plate glass to dormer windows, all in timber sash and case windows; 6-pane glazing pattern to fixed timber display windows. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with rusticated quoins and cans; ashlar-coped skews.

INTERIOR: good decorative scheme in place including shop at No 28 with 2-leaf part-glazed screen door and 2-part fanlight, and timber dog-leg staircase (probably installed 1897) with decorative cast-iron balusters leading to 1st and 2nd floor offices with decorative and moulded plasterwork cornices and ceiling roses; timber shutters; brass sash lifts; timber fire surrounds with cast-iron grates. Turnpike stair with ironwork balusters and timber handrail. Shop at No 26 with part-glazed timber door and 2-part fanlight, boarded timber walls and moulded cornice.

Statement of Interest

Nos 31, 32 and 33 (listed separately) mirror this block, which together form a flanking pair to the Bank Buildings at Nos 29 and 30 (also listed separately).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17831110

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

• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair