Building record 10782 - Bank at No 15 Foregate Street

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 469777 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

No 15 Foregate Street is a bank, built 1921 by Francis Jones for the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank Ltd, and extended 1964 by Saxon Smith and Partners. It is now occupied by the Royal Bank of Scotland. It has a steel frame clad in sandstone and timber framing with plaster panels in the Vernacular Revival style. The first floor is jettied. The one bay south front to Foregate Street and the south bay of the five bay east front to Frodsham Street contain the lobby of the banking hall with offices above.

<2> Donald Insall Associates Ltd, 2023, Former Royal Bank of Scotland, 15 Foregate Street, Chester, CH1 1HD: Heritage, Design & Access Statement, R4740 (Client Report). SCH9573.

The former Royal Bank of Scotland building is formed of two distinct phases of development. It was constructed as a bank in 1921 for the company later known as the District Bank, to designs by Francis Jones, modelled (broadly) on a Cheshire Tudor mansion. The use of the Vernacular Revival was a well-established approach to bank architecture and, more broadly, had flourished in commercial architecture in Chester for decades earlier. The building was then extended in 1964 along the
Frodsham Street frontage, to designs by Saxon Smith & Partners, replicating Jones’ earlier black and white façade. As a whole, its significance is principally derived through its richly decorated facades which have a visual cohesiveness across the entire frontages despite the phased development.

Internally, the building retains features typical of a historic branch bank, primarily located at ground and first floor within the envelope of the 1921 building. These include the plan form - a banking hall, waiting room and managers’ offices – as well as decorative, high-quality interiors. The spatial arrangement and interior fit-out provides evidence of the historic design of bank buildings and the stylistic evolution of this building typology, which is becoming increasingly rare. As such, these elements of the former bank are considered to be of high historic and architectural significance. The Saxon Smith addition of replacement panelling to the banking hall, and other changes, results in a layering of features to the interior of the 1921 building that warrants due consideration for preservation in any internal proposals. The interior to the 1964 extension has far less architectural and
istoric significance, with only occasional features of interest (such as the second Modernist staircase).