Description

James Pearson Alison, 1914. 3-storey and attic, 5-bay, Renaissance palazzo-style bank forming part of terrace, with channelled ground floor, deep entablature and recessed attic storey. Yellow sandstone ashlar to front; squared yellow sandstone with some polished ashlar and brick dressings to rear. Base course; corniced fascia; deep eaves frieze and deep dentilled cornice. Round-arched openings at ground floor; rectangular openings elsewhere.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: 2-leaf, 6-panel timber doors with sunburst fanlights to outer bays at ground floor, the left with raised, stepped keystone; single horizontal glazing bar at springing point in 3 central windows. 1st-floor windows with projecting, bracketed cills, blocked architraves, and alternating pediments and entablatures -segmental-arched at centre, triangular at left and right, and flat in between. 2nd-floor windows with lugged architraves.

Fixed plate glass at ground floor; plate glass in timber sash-and-case windows above; predominantly multi-pane glazing in timber sash-and-case windows to rear. Grey Scottish slate roof. Corniced ashlar gablehead stack with circular buff clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Ground-floor banking hall with decorative plasterwork now hidden by false ceiling. Timber-panelled entrance lobby through left door in principal elevation, leading to stone stair to upper floors. Predominantly 6-panel timber doors in fluted architraves throughout upper storeys; some cornices and picture rails; some timber-panelled window surrounds; some timber chimneypieces at 2nd floor and cast-iron chimneypieces in attic. Serving bell indicator box above door in kitchen at 2nd floor. U-shaped timber staircase with turned timber balusters and square newels from 2nd floor to attic.

Statement of Interest

An elegantly proportioned Renaissance-style bank in a central position on the High Street at the heart of Hawick, designed by James Pearson Alison (1862-1932), Hawick's most prominent architect. Alison commenced practice in the town in 1888 and remained there until his death in 1932, during which period he was responsible for a large number of buildings of widely varying types and styles, including a considerable proportion of Hawick's listed structures.

The upper storeys would originally have provided offices and living accommodation for the bank manager. The first floor still contains offices, now used by other companies, and the room layout is little altered. The second floor and attic retain their original layout as a two-storey 'house', and are separately owned.

The interior features are by Scott Morton & Co. William Scott Morton (1840-1903) set up the company in Glasgow with his younger brother John and a mechanical engineer in 1870, William initially practising as an architect and designer whilst John took charge of the cabinet-making, wallpaper manufacturing and interior design workshops. It was for interior decoration and furnishing that the firm became known, achieving wide acclaim and carrying out work on structures as diverse as banks, churches, private houses and steam yachts.

The building was originally Hawick Savings Bank. Founded as the Hawick Bank for the Savings of Industry on 7 January 1815, it was established to encourage the working classes to put aside money, and is the oldest savings bank with a continuous existence in the British Isles. It occupied a succession of different premises prior to the construction of this building. In 1960 the Langholm Savings Bank was merged with the Hawick one, and Jedburgh joined the merger in 1967. Further amalgamations with Trustee Savings Banks over a broad area took place in the early 1970s, resulting in the change of name to the Trustee Savings Bank, and more recently Lloyds TSB. List description revised following resurvey (2008).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17834640

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

• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)