Sherborne, Dorset

Surprised in Sherborne, 2

Sherborne’s Cheap Street is a very attractive jumble of architectural styles – from late-medieval timber framed structures to stone buildings from virtually every later date: a hotch-potch, mostly with recent shop fronts, but much of it given unity by the glowing stone. Even in this good company, the bow-fronted building above is outstanding. Living near Cheltenham, I’m used to stucco-covered Regency buildings decked out with classical cornices, columns and iron balconies, but even so this one made me pause. It’s small, with just a single window on the upper floor of its curvaceous facade, but what a window – the full Venetian, with a pair of rectangular sections bookending a round-topped central portion, the whole surrounded by elegant mouldings and highlights picked out in white. A neat cornice and parapet, balustraded in the centre, complete this upper floor, which rests on four stone Ionic columns that frame the modern shop window. The iron balcony is the finishing Regency touch, vital for the safety of those inside who want to open the big window, which extends down to the floor.

As with the shop front in my previous post, I wondered what this building was used for when it was first put up in the early part of the 19th century. The upper room looked to me like the spacious drawing room of a middle-class house, the sort of thing that wouldn’t look out of place in Brighton. But there was no clue to what was originally where the modern shop window is now. The answer turns out to be that the building belonged to the Sherborne Savings Bank, who erected it in 1818. 

This was the formative period for savings banks in England. These banks were set up to provide banking facilities for poorer people – those who were not normally the customers of the established banks, whose accounts did not normally bear interest at this time. Savings banks welcomed small investors, including those who could save only intermittently, as their incomes were unreliable and varied according to the seasons or the availability of work.* Although savings banks did not help the very poor, who found it impossible to save any money at all, they were attractive to those such as artisans, small farmers, shopkeepers, and domestic servants, among whom were many who had a little money to save and who liked the idea of self-help. Savings banks were not perfect: in an era before elaborate state regulation of financial institutions, some folded as the result of fraud or incompetence. But for many they played a useful role.

Whoever designed the Sherborne bank’s building did their best with what was clearly a confined site. Ideally, the sweep of the bow front should stick out over the pavement area, so that it can make an impression whichever way you approach it. But the building to the right already sticks out, so this wouldn’t have worked without invading too much pavement space. So here it sits, standing proud of one neighbour and slightly in the shadow of the other, making its impression nonetheless.

The delicate architecture of this frontage is not what I normally associate with banks. The banks I’ve admired on this blog in the past have been rather chunky buildings, with the kind of solid-looking masonry that suggests strength and security. They seem to tell you that your money will be safe here. This building is very different. It’s impressive, but in a gentler, more domestic way. Its columns and the overhang they make possible offer shelter from the rain and seem inviting. ‘Come in,’ they say, ‘and you’ll receive a warm welcome.’ The effect seems wholly appropriate for a savings bank set up for those not previously used to dealing with the estanlishged banks or money markets. It still works its charm, on one passer-by, at least.

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* Small investors could also entrust their money to Friendly Societies, but these had regulations – often requiring members to deposit money regularly, that did not suit those with irregular incomes. Savings banks did not have such rules.