Former town house and Parr's Bank, Prescot, Knowsley

Summary

Former town house, subsequently a bank, built between 1774 and 1776, with C19 and C20 alterations.

Description

Former town house, later a bank, built between 1774 and 1776, with C19 and C20 alterations. Late Georgian style.

MATERIALS: brick with stone dressings and a slate roof, and wooden sash windows.

PLAN: a three-storey main-block on the corner of High Street and Church Street, with a late-C18 and a C20 extension attached to the east. Attached to the south elevation is an early-C20 hipped and catslide extension with a series of flat-roof mid-C20 extensions.

EXTERIOR: the three-storey main-block and the three-storey east extension form the original late-C18 townhouse. The main block has a five-bay main (west) elevation, with a stone plinth and three central bays breaking forward under a heavily moulded pediment, with a cornice and blocking course to the bays either side. It conceals a hipped and gabled slate roof with three off-set and truncated chimney stacks (two joined as east end stacks). There is a late-C20 central entrance door with flat panelled pilasters supporting an entablature and pediment, and a metal six-panelled replica C18 bank door (inserted 1996) with a late-C20 three paned over-light. Flanking, and above, the central entrance is a symmetrical arrangement of windows. The window surrounds have gauged-brick flat arches, those to the ground-floor are a mix of original and re-inserted late-C20 surrounds, and a continuous string band forms the projecting sill to all first-floor windows. The windows have double-hung sashes, the majority of which are C20 replacements, but some late-C18 upper and lower sashes remain (on the first and second-floor of both the west and north elevation). The left (north) return, facing High Street, is of four bays, with matching fenestration to the front elevation, whilst the right (south) return is blind, with extensions attached at ground and first-floor level. The rear (east) elevation has two centrally aligned mid-floor arched stairwell sash windows, the lower blocked and the upper with late-C19 sash glazing. Directly south is a first-floor and second-floor brick bond segmental arched window, the lower blocked and the upper with a square late-C20 window.

Attached to the east elevation of the late-C18 main block is the late-C18 three-storey pitched roof extension. It has a three-bay north elevation of three ground-floor windows which match the main block, the western window is inserted into a former doorway. The floors above have an off-set window (now - 2021 - blocked). The side (east) and rear (south) elevations are substantially altered. The east elevation has a wide C20 flat lintel two-leaf entrance door and a late-C19 window (with one-over-one sash) on each floor above. The south elevation has been partially re-built in the early-C20 and the fenestrative arrangement adapted, with first and second-floor doors, to provide access to a mid-C20 metal framed fire-escape with platforms and staircases. The fire-escape extends across to an early-C20 single-storey flat-roof brick built east extension (which forms one room of the early-C20 ground-floor banking strong room), which has white ceramic tiles to the north elevation.

Attached to the south elevation of the late-C18 main block is a brick built early-C20 extension, rising from a brick plinth. The single-bay west elevation has one ground-floor top casement wooden paned window. Above is a half-hipped roof which terminates at a set-back two-storey catslide roof containing a single C20 four-pane wooden window. The south elevation is of four bays, with three top casement wooden paned windows to the west and a brick built projecting porch which contains a late-C19 panelled two-leaf side-door. Two mid-C20 single-storey brick built, and flat-roof, extensions are attached to the east side of the early-C20 extension, with doors into the rear yard.

INTERIOR: the original internal arrangement of townhouse rooms has been altered to form a strengthened floor-plan for a late-C19 bank, with strong rooms on the ground-floor and basement. The main open-plan ground-floor room, accessed directly from the central door, has four window surrounds to the west and five C20 windows to the north, all of which retain re-set late-C19 window surrounds with panelling and internal hinged window shutters. Flanking either side of the central door is a floor to ceiling moulded window architrave, with rectangular stops. The room retains deep C19 skirting with two different moulding profiles and a late-C19 plastered banking ceiling, ornamented with dentillated and egg-and-dart cornicing along the beams, and a simpler moulded cornice elsewhere. A stepped early-C20 two-leaf door gives access into the east extension’s ground-floor, which has matching C19 window surrounds and shutters. Within the main room a late-C19 staircase rises up through the floors, which is ornamented with square chamfered and finialled newel posts and decorative scroll brackets to the open-string stair. To the rear (east) of the staircase there is a short passage with an external east door leading into the rear yard and a below stairs cupboard (formerly giving access to the basement). South of the staircase an early-C20 concrete-built strong room, three-rooms deep, has been built into the room’s south-east corner. It has an iron two-leaf mesh door set behind a substantial Hobbs, Hart and Co Progress D security door. The south wall has a chimney breast and to the east a heavily moulded and wide late-C19 door architrave (and early-C20 metal door) which accesses the early-C20 south extension. The extension comprises an L-shaped corridor with a west and south room (the latter now a kitchen). The south end of the corridor terminates with a re-set late-C19 door architrave and a substantial late-C19 panelled mock two-leaf bank door. To the right is an internal access door to a subsidiary and heavily altered brick-built basement which formed part of a pre-existing terrace building to the south. It has early-C20 concrete steps, with a corrugated roof, leading down to a C18 brick-built basement with C19 and C20 alterations. The east elevation of the early-C20 extension gives access to two single-storey flat-roof 1950s extensions; which contain two ground-floor rooms to the east and to the south a short north-south aligned corridor leading to a WC block.

The first-floor is accessed from the main staircase, which has a dogleg-with-half-landing and a blind arched window. The landing provides access north and south to a series of inter-connected rooms, comprising four rooms to the main block and a single room to the late-18 east extension. Late-C18 square stopped window surrounds, with panelling and shutters, remain in situ across the north and west elevation and sections of C19 cornicing and remnants of historic wallpaper are in situ (now concealed beneath suspended ceilings). A late-C19 door surround leads to the south-west room, with a matching late-C19 surround in the south-east room which provides access to a cupboard. The cupboard extends into the upper floor of the early-C20 south extension and partially retains a late-C19 staircase (which provided access between the upper floors and former south terrace house). The north-east room (now subdivided) is accessed through a late-C18 shouldered and bolection moulded door architrave, with a C20 metal door. Two east C20 doorways give access to the extension's first-floor, which retains a late-C19 cross-beam plaster ceiling. The first to second-floor staircase has a dogleg-with-quarter winder stair, with an arched staircase window which retains a moulded architrave supported on brackets. The second-floor has a similar arrangement of rooms, and retains late-C18 door surrounds and panelled doors to the north-west and north-east rooms, with late-C18 square stopped and simply moulded window surrounds to the north and west elevation. C20 doorways have been punctured between rooms on both floors.

The basement is now accessed through a ground-floor trap-door and it contains four rooms, all with late-C19 brick buttresses abutting pre-existing walls to support a late-C19 concrete plank, metal frame and iron girder banking floor. The rooms are formed from sandstone wall footings of earlier buildings, most likely those of the former Cockpitt House and New House, with sandstone quoins marking former external walls and openings. Inverted and infilled late-C18 brick arches cut through the earlier stone masonry to support and strengthen the late-C18 elevations above. The north-west room has a stone-flagged floor, whilst the south-west room has an irregular arrangement of red brick flooring with a C18 brick chimney breast against the south wall (infilled with late-C19 brickwork and a cast-iron clean-out door). An east doorway in the south-west room gives access to a now blocked late-C18 stone basement staircase (with a C19 wooden stair-frame set over it). Directly south of the stair is a late-C19 brick built south-east strong room, accessed by a substantial raised and fielded metal safe door. The north-east room has an C20 access shute in the north wall (concealed externally).

History

Thirty-four Church Street or Cockpit House, built between 1774 and 1776, is prominently located at the corner of Derby Street and Church Street and positioned close to Prescot Parish Church and the Market Place. A survey of 1592 suggests that a cockpit has existed on this site from the C16, one of five within Lancashire, and remained in use until the mid- to late-C18. A house named Cockpitt House (with adjacent buildings and the cock pit) appears in a 1668 inventory and by a 1721 survey a new building, ‘New House’, was built alongside it. Both buildings were included in a 1771 plan relating to the transfer of buildings and land between Henry Hatton, Thomas Bromilow and John Parr and were subsequently demolished. Yet their foundations are partially retained in this late-C18 building, built between 1774 and 1776, which took on the local name of Cockpit House. The building first appears on the 1:500 1848 OS town plan, comprising a main building on the corner of two streets with a central entrance marked on the west elevation, an adjacent east extension and a rear yard. Attached to the south elevation was terraced housing, and two of these were included in the copyhold for Cockpit House. An 1825 plan indicates the terrace house attached directly south was occupied by Anthony Tyrer Ducker, a stationer and printer, but it later became part of the main house in the late-C19 before its near complete demolition in the early-C20.

In July 1875 Parr’s Banking Company relocated their Prescot premises to 34 Church Street. Parr and Company (also known as Warrington Bank) was a private bank established in 1788 by Joseph Parr, Thomas Lyon and Walter Kerfoot. Parr and Lyon derived profits from sugar refinery and were therefore part of a well-established network that depended upon and sustained transatlantic slavery in the West Indies. Between 1825 to 1865 the bank had various names, formerly Parr, Lyon and Greenall and latterly Parr, Lyon and Company. In 1865 the bank was reconstructed as a joint stock bank with limited liability and the Prescot branch was opened in 1869 as a sub-branch to the St Helens branch (1839) before moving to Church Street. The purchase of the fine former town house led to substantial late-C19 alterations. Photographs show the main bank entrance was re-positioned in the northernmost bay of the front (west) elevation and the majority of the north elevation windows were bricked in. The three-bay east extension was amalgamated in use but retained a separate pedimented doorway, with a staircase behind, and its upper windows were blocked. The terrace house to the south was also brought into the bank’s use and provided separate access to the bank’s ground-floor and first-floor. Internally the ground-floor was re-organised as a main banking room with upper floors divided between accommodation for the manager and other tenants (accessed from the adjoining terrace to the south). Alterations included inserting a basement strong room, re-laying the ground-floor with supporting brick basement buttresses, inserting a new central staircase along with new door architraves and deep moulded skirting and adding decorated plaster beam banking ceilings in the main ground-floor room and east extension. Further alterations are suggested in the 1:500 1892 OS town plan which shows a glass-roofed extension to the rear.

In 1896 the company’s name was shortened to Parr’s Bank Limited and in 1918 the bank amalgamated with London County and Westminster Bank of London, to form London County Westminster and Parr's Bank; the name was shortened to Westminster Bank in 1923 and to the National Westminster Bank (NatWest) by 1970. Further alterations took place around or shortly after 1922 when the main building and eastern extension were connected through a major renovation, which extended the main ground-floor banking room across the former east extension’s staircase, turned the High Street porched doorway into a window and punctured internal doorways through to all the east extension’s floors. Shop frontages were inserted through the main north elevation, with the majority of the bricked in upper windows restored with sashes. The terrace house attached to the south elevation, which had provided separate stair access to the first-floor, was demolished, and part of the staircase and internal door surrounds were retained within an early-C20 pitched and catslide roof south extension. Between the 1:2500 1927 (revised 1925) and 1939 (revised 1937) OS maps the Hobbs, Hart and Co strong rooms was built into the south-east corner of the building extending out into another east extension. In the mid-C20 the fire-escape platform and stairs was installed and between 1955 and 1963 further flat-roof extensions were built attached to the earlier south extension. The bank relocated to purpose built premises on Eccleston Street in 1980 and the building become the Prescot Clock and Watchmaking Museum between 1981 and 2012. As part of a program of works Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council adapted the building, which included removing the former north entrance and re-inserting a central pedimented east entrance with the symmetrical arrangement of C18-style gauged brick flat-arched and sashed windows across the ground-floor. A new entrance porch and metal door were inserted around 1996.

Reasons for Listing

34 Church Street, a former town house, subsequently a bank, built between 1774 and 1776, with C19 and C20 alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:

* as a type of C18 brick-built townhouse which is characteristic of later-C18 and early-C19 domestic architecture in this area;
* as a high-quality town house, adapted to late-C19 bank premises, with an impressive but restrained outward appearance symbolising reliability and security;
* for the retention of decorative fixtures and fittings which show its former phases of spatial configuration, including the decorated late-C19 banking ceilings, substantial strong rooms, late-C18 moulded door architraves and panelled doors and window panelling with internal hinged window shutters.

Historic interest:

* for its former association with Parr's Banking Company after its conversion to a joint stock bank, the emerging dominant banking system in the C19.

Group value:

* the building benefits from a spatial group value with the listed Church of St Mary and 9 Market Place.

External Links

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