Finsbury Bank for Savings
Menu

History of the building

Chapter 6 of 121840–2022

Manager’s left, depositors’ right

The CEAJ noted: “All the fascias are made very broad, for the purpose of receiving inscriptions to be visible at a considerable distance.” The frieze reads FINSBURY BANK FOR SAVINGS, and the fascia over the ground floor reads INSTITUTED A.D. 1816. ERECTED A.D. 1840. The 1840 engraving has FOUNDED instead of INSTITUTED, and whether FOUNDED was ever carved is not known. For Ian Nairn in 1966, “What holds the design together is the splendid embossed lettering.”

Small panels over the two end-bay doors told people which door to use. Seen from the street, the manager’s entrance was on the left and the depositors’ on the right. The 1840 engraving letters the right-hand panel “PUBLIC ENTRA[NCE]”. A woodcut on the bank’s annual statement for 1844 reads “[MA]NAGER’S ENTRANCE” on the left and “[DE]POSITOR’S ENTRANCE” on the right. The left-hand door also led to the domestic rooms. It is still the entrance; the depositors’ doorway is now a window.

The left-hand wing of the front: an arched upper window between two columns, MANAGER’S ENTRANCE lettered in the band below, and a pair of dark doors under a fanlight in a rusticated arch, behind railings. (full-size image)
The front from the south in March 2022, with the reinstated MANAGER’S ENTRANCE over the left-hand door.Photo: No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The right-hand wing of the front: DEPOSITORS’ ENTRANCE lettered in the frieze above a round-arched opening with a fanlight and dark-framed glazing, behind iron railings. (full-size image)
DEPOSITORS’ ENTRANCE, over the right-hand wing, 31 March 2022.Photo: No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The lettering over the doors was later lost. In 2021 Islington granted listed building consent for repairs to the front and the “reinstatement of facade lettering”. The planning officer accepted that “There are historic depictions of the property with additional lettering on the front elevation above the two former entrance doors”. The work was complete by 31 March 2022. The end bays now read MANAGER’S ENTRANCE and DEPOSITORS’ ENTRANCE; the word “depositors” comes from 1844, not the “public” of 1840.

Notes

  1. CEAJ (July 1840), p. 217.
  2. CEAJ (July 1840), p. 217, engraving (signed “T. WITHY. Sc”): FINSBURY BANK FOR SAVINGS. on the frieze, and FOUNDED A.D. 1816 and ERECTED A.D. 1840 on the fascia (the spacing of the stops varies between readings). The 1844 annual statement’s cover woodcut (as chapter 5, note 7) reads INSTITUTED A.D. 1816, ERECTED A.D. 1840., as does the building (Historic England list entry 1209479: “INSTITUTED A.D.1816. ERECTED A.D.1840”).
  3. Ian Nairn, Nairn’s London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 172. Copyright; quoted briefly. The word is “embossed”.
  4. CEAJ (July 1840), p. 217 (“rusticated wings, containing the entrances, each 6 feet wide”), and engraving (page image https://archive.org/download/civilengineerarc03lond/page/n252_w2400.jpg, read on enlarged crops): the right-hand panel reads “PUBLIC ENTRA[NCE]”, with the rest of the word cut off by the frame; the left-hand panel is only partly legible, but its letters are consistent with “MANAGERS ENT[RANCE]”. 1844 annual statement, cover woodcut (as chapter 5, note 7); the first letters are lost in the hatching. The Survey of London (vol. 46, pp. 82–83, para [p81]) puts the public entrance on the left and the manager’s private entrance on the right; it gives no source, and all the other evidence found points the other way.
  5. Alan Baxter Ltd, Heritage Statement, October 2017, ss. 2.1.2 and 2.2.1: the manager’s office and the residential accommodation were reached “via the lefthand entrance whilst the public entrance was on the right”; “the original public entrance is now a window”. Historic England list entry 1209479 records the left-hand outer bay as “now an entrance”.
  6. London Borough of Islington, planning register (https://planning.agileapplications.co.uk/islington), P2021/0250/LBC (applied for 28 January 2021; decision notice issued 25 May 2021): “Facade repair works, repainting of windows and railings and reinstatement of facade lettering”; delegated report (authorised 24 May 2021), para 6.2. The detailed lettering drawing required by condition 3(a) was approved on 24 August 2021 (P2021/1661/AOD; drawing 525-142 “Proposed Lettering”). Photographs taken on 4 April 2021 show a plain frieze over the right-hand bay (Flickr, “diamond geezer”, https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/51095058468/). When the original lettering disappeared is not known.
  7. Wikimedia Commons, “No Swan So Fine”, four photographs taken 31 March 2022 (“Former Finsbury Bank for Savings, Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell, March 2022.jpg” and _02–_04); Flickr, “Reading Tom”, 15 April 2022 (52024352563). The supporting heritage statement placed “Managers’ Entrance” over the south (left) entrance and “Depositors’ Entrance” over the north (right) (Avalon Heritage Ltd, Heritage Statement Rev B, May 2021, P2021/0250/LBC, para 3.1.5). Compare the CEAJ engraving (1840, “PUBLIC”) and the 1844 woodcut (“DEPOSITOR’S”).