Description

David Rhind, 1869 with later additions. 3-storey, 3-bay, L-plan, symmetrical corner sited palazzo style former bank with ancillary ranges to rear. Hoodmoulds and lugged architraved windows; pillastered balustrade to central tripartite and pedimented window; deep bracketed overhanging eaves. Coursed stugged blonde sandstone ashlar; smooth rusticated ashlar quoins. Earlier 20th century marble and granite cladding at ground floor; moulded bracketed string and cill courses at 1st and 2nd floors. Plain 2-storey, 2-bay range with band course to rear and single storey piended section behind. Random whin rubble with sandstone margins to rear elevation. Later 20th century flat-roofed rendered extensions and brick bin store to far left.

Hardwood margin-paned windows and double timber doors with carved detail fanlights to ground floor; predominantly out of character uPVC windows to upper floors, some 4-pane timber sash and case to rear elevation; bars to rear ground floor windows. Low pitched slate roof with valley to rear, corniced ashlar end stack with clay cans. Cast-iron downpipes recessed in string courses.

INTERIOR: 20th century partitions forming new offices to ground floor, converted to flats at upper floors.

Statement of Interest

The Commercial Bank is a good example of regional bank architecture incorporating fine classical detailing and quality stonework. It is a modest representation of some of the more elaborate bank designs by David Rhind (1808- 1883), a prominent Scottish architect, and the official architect for the Commercial Bank at the time. The bank's relationship to the adjoining tenement by A G Sydney Mitchell mirrors the relationship between the Commercial Bank in Gordon Street, Glasgow and the corresponding Sidney Mitchell building on Buchannon Street.

The bank was built at a cost of £2653 in 1869, having moved from the temporary premises held since 1866 on the other side of the street on the corner with Johnston's Close.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77779625

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

• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)