ONE of Hexham‘s most spectacular buildings is being given a lift.

The HSBC Bank in Fore Street is having its 20-year-old bullion lift replaced, but needs formal listed building consent for the work to be done.

There will be no visible external or internal alternations to the listed building, which was built in 1897.

In a covering letter with the application, agents for the company say: “The branch is not typical of the majority of retail branches within the bank’s estate.

“The style of the building can best be described as exuberant. The influences range from the classical, in the domed cupola, at the main entrance, Gothic revival in spectacular and dominant oriel windows at first floor level through to Scots baronial to Scots vernacular, in the high, plain, gable at the northern façade.”

The bank is also noted for its red sandstone frieze featuring cherubs, sovereigns, shillings and pennies.

The artist responsible for the frieze has not never been identified, but, the architect of the bank, who may well have had a large hand in its design, was George Dale Olive, county architect for Cumberland.

Construction of the present building began in 1896 when the Carlisle City and District Banking Company, which had had a Hexham branch since 1892, was amalgamated with the London and Midland Bank.

The frieze originally bore the inscription ‘The London and Midland Bank’.