Old Bank Buildings is row of shops and offices in Foregate Street in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

History

The buildings were designed by T. M. Lockwood and completed in 1895. They are built in brick with applied

timber-framing Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the struc ...

and a tiled roof. The buildings are in three storeys with cellars, and have modern shop fronts in the ground floor. The first floor projects over the pavement and is carried on posts. The top floor and the two

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s are

jettied Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of incr ...

with decorative

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

s. There is one

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

, the other windows being

oriels An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an upper floor, but is als ...

. On the corner is a timber-framed turret with a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

. The buildings were initially used by

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a major British retail banking, retail and commercial bank with a significant presence across England and Wales. It has traditionally been regarded one of the "Big Four (banking)#England and Wales, Big Four" clearing house ...

and by

Williams Deacon's Bank Williams Deacon's Bank was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1930. It had a large network of branches in the north-west of England. In 1970, it was integrated with Glyn, Mills & Co. and The National Bank (which were part of the same grou ...

. The buildings became the headquarters of the

Cheshire Yeomanry The Cheshire Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment that can trace its history back to 1797 when Sir John Leicester of Tabley raised a county regiment of light cavalry in response to the growing fears of invasion from Napoleonic France. Its lineage i ...

just before the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The regiment was mobilised at the buildings in August 1914 before being deployed to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and after the war the buildings were decommissioned and returned to commercial use.

References

Sources

* * {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Chester Grade II listed buildings in Chester

History

See also

References

Sources