Former Redruth District Bank and post office, Redruth, Cornwall

Summary

Former bank and post office, now Redruth Civic Centre. 1880 by James Hicks for Messrs. Bain, Field and Co. Interior rebuilt 2000-2001.

Description

Former bank and post office, now Redruth Civic Centre. 1880 by James Hicks for Messrs. Bain, Field and Co. Interior rebuilt 2000-2001.

MATERIALS: granite (possibly from Carn Marth quarries), C20 slate roof.

PLAN: the 1880 building is roughly rectangular, reducing in width from south to north.

EXTERIOR: the building is designed in a Renaissance style over two storeys with a projecting cornice, impost band and stringcourses. The pitched roof has three stacks with terracotta pots (2000-2001 replacements), and kneelers to the gable ends. The main elevation (east) is eight bays wide and faced mainly in granite ashlar; the plinth and lower parts of the four doorways are rock-faced granite. The bays alternate in design with entrances in alternate bays: the southern four bays comprise the former bank and the northern four the former post office. The entrance bays break forward slightly and have round-headed doorways with stout pilasters as jambs, part rock-faced, part fluted above a mid-level block. Their heads spring from a stringcourse and have keystones; those in the first and third bays have ornamental cast-iron fanlights. The southern-most doorway is slightly wider. Above each entrance on the first floor is a round-arched window with a keystone, shouldered and eared architraves and a cill band. The second bay from the south has a three-light window on the ground floor, with segmental-arch heads and mullions with decorative granite corbels supporting a canted oriel window on the first floor. The fourth bay has a large plate-glass window with decorative ironwork above and ‘Kresen Kernow’ in ironwork letters, with a tripartite square-headed window above. The sixth bay has a three-light window on both levels; those to the ground floor have segmental-arch heads, and the first-floor square-heads. The final, eighth, bay has a square-headed tripartite window on the ground floor, with mullions and corbels supporting a canted oriel window. All windows are horned timber sashes, some being later replacements.

The rear of the building is largely obscured by an extension to its west (excluded from the List entry). The rear has square-headed windows with mullions and transoms on the first floor, and five dormer windows to the rebuilt roof. There is a single round-headed window on the south elevation. The north elevation has a series of small rectangular windows.

INTERIOR: largely destroyed by fire in 1982 and rebuilt 2000-2001. Some internal dividing walls appear to have survived.

History

The Redruth District Bank was founded by Mr DW Bain (1829-1898), along with TW Field and MT Hitchins in early January 1879. The bank was briefly based in Fore Street before moving to a hastily-converted outfitters’ shop on 10 January 1879. On 16 January 1879 the local paper announced that the new bank and post-office ‘will soon be finished’. The buildings were constructed on the site of a Baptist chapel (demolished 1875), on land acquired from Gustavus Lambert Basset (1834-1888) of Tehidy. The builder was Mr Berry and it was designed by local architect, James Hicks.

James Hicks (1846-1896) was born in Redruth and lived in the town for most of his life. By the age of 25 Hicks had set up his own practice; an early commission was the remodelling of Tolvean on West End, Redruth for Alfred Lanyon, a prominent Redruthian who had amassed a fortune through investment in commercial, industrial and private buildings. Hicks’ relationships with businessmen and industrialists continued during his career, and for ten years he was the local agent for Lord Clinton. The bulk of Hicks’ work comprised public buildings including chapels and schools throughout Cornwall, but from the mid-1870s he began to have an influence on the building stock, and the civil direction, of his hometown. In 1883 Hicks acquired the lease for the nearby Carn Marth granite quarries from Lord Clinton and James Buller, forming the Cornish Granite and Freestone Company. The company took their fair share of new building contracts in Redruth, highlighting his interest in the wellbeing of the town. In 1894 Hicks became the first President of the Ratepayer’s Association and was a member of Redruth Urban District Council from 1895.

Until the mid-C19 Redruth’s centre of commerce was at West End; this changed in 1852 when the railway station was built near the Market House (built 1825-1826), the commercial benefits of convenience were realised, and Alma Place became a focal point for future development. Hicks was probably contracted for the bank and post office in September 1879, around the same time as he was designing other buildings on Alma Place as part of its redevelopment into an economic hub for Redruth. Bain, Field, Hitchins and Co were instrumental in the construction of a whole block of buildings on Alma Place, all of the land for which was owned by Basset. The block comprised a mining exchange, the Redruth District Bank, a post office, and a coffee tavern. A purser’s office was added to the south of the group in 1882.

Redruth District Bank moved into the premises on 25 March 1880. The post office moved from West End into the premises on 20 July 1880. A 70-year lease for the bank and the adjacent post office were signed by Bain on 4 August 1880 with a yearly rent of £18. The three partners acquired the building in 1886.

At the time of opening, the bank was described in the local press as a ‘fine specimen of a cut granite building’ with excellent accommodation. The post office was described as ‘very commodious’ with its proximity to the railway station improving the delivery and posting times for letters, and the telegraph department useful for the neighbouring mining exchange. A residence was also provided for a postmaster. Plans from the 1880s deeds show that the bank was in the southern half of the building with its own front entrance to the street (east). To the south of this was the manager’s office with a fireplace, and two strong-rooms to its west; to the south again a separate front entrance to a staircase hall led to offices on the first floor. The post office covered a similar area of floor-space to the north, with an identical front entrance to the bank and two fireplaces in the main room. Adjacent, a further front entrance led to a considerable-sized staircase hall; rooms to its north appear to have accessed from the most-northern front entrance. Some of the rooms had plaster cornices, but otherwise the building was constructed economically on a steel frame (see Johns et al, in Sources)

The Consolidated Bank of Cornwall took over the West Cornwall Bank on Penryn Street in 1890, followed by the Redruth District Bank on Alma Place in 1891. Both continued as two branches of the Consolidated Bank until 1905 when it was taken over by Barclays and the business amalgamated at the Penryn Street address. Barclays operated from the Alma Place bank from 1906 to 1907 whilst their new premises on Penryn Street were under construction.

In 1907 the post office and bank building were put up for sale by auction; the sales details describe the two businesses – of note is that the bank had seven offices on the first floor, and the post office six with three more on the floor above. Photographs from the 1920s show that the former bank was occupied by Pearse, Jenkin and Bawden, surveyors and estate agents; and that one of the tripartite ground-floor windows had been replaced with a plate-glass display window with decorative ironwork above. This was replaced again with a many-paned window later in the C20; its design was reverted to plate glass and ironwork in 2000-2001. The post office and three rooms over the bank were let to HM Postmaster General for another 20 years; the post office remained on Alma Place until 1958. After this, the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food took over the building.

On 10 September 1982 a fire broke out in a furniture warehouse to the rear within part of the former Buttermarket. The fire spread to Alma Place, destroying most of the interior and the roof of the former bank and post office. The buildings were brought back into use in 2000-2001 as the Cornwall Centre with minor alterations to the frontage, adaptation of the interior to include surviving fabric, and a large extension to the west (excluded from the List entry).

Reasons for Listing

The former Redruth District Bank and post office built in 1880, designed by James Hicks, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a characterful example of the work of Redruth’s principal C19 architect, James Hicks;
* despite its losses, the building is well detailed and utilises local materials in its construction.

Historic interest:

* as a significant component in the late-C19 post-mining building boom in Redruth, many buildings for which were designed by Hicks.

Group value:
* with the former mining exchange, Lamb and Flag coffee tavern, and Wheal Peevor Purser’s Office on Alma Place, designed by James Hicks between 1880 and 1882, and listed at Grade II.

External Links

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