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Manchester, Royal Bank of Scotland, St Ann's Square

This tour finishes at St Ann's Square which is graced by the urbane No. 25, now the Royal Bank of Scotland, built in 1848 for Benjamin Heywood's bank by J.E. Gregan. It is one of the finest of the palazzoGlossary Term inspired buildings in the city, three storeys, of pale sandstone, beautifully finished. Care was taken to place the stone on its natural bed and so avoid premature decay. The rusticated ground floor has arcades of windows, on the upper floor pedimented windows have balconies. The corner is taken with a generous splay.
The lower brick-built manager's house on St Ann's Street is a more simply treated palazzoGlossary Term, with a splay to Cross Street drawing the composition together. It is linked to the main block by the single-storey entrance, an arrangement recalling the PalazzoGlossary Term Pandolfini in Florence, successfully relating the smaller scale of the domestic premises with the noble proportions of the bank.