tant feature; here polished red granite, with an incised pattern, is a successful novelty. There is also novelty, as well as artistic feeling, in the substitution of a slightly raised leaf-pattern for the ordinary rustication. The building is said to have cost about 17,000l., the architect was Mr. J. Belcher.

Our second illustration of current street architecture is the Union Bank, Chancery-lane and Carey-street, designed by Mr. F. W. Porter. The general character and appearance of the building are sufficiently shown in the engraving (Cut No. 5), the drawing for which was made from elevations kindly lent by the architect. The building itself is of considerable magnitude. The Carey-street front, that shown in the cut, is 143 feet long; the Chancery-lane front, 50 feet. It is throughout of Portland stone, except the shafts of the columns at the bank entrance, which are of polished red granite. The façade, as will be observed, displays the three orders after a type not unfamiliar in Rome: Tuscan in the ground floor, Ionic in the first, and Corinthian in the second floor. There is a little more enrichment in the Chancery-lane front, and the columns are detached. As a whole it is a very noble building: stately, solid, simple, not overlaid with ornament, and sufficiently varied without being unsymmetrical. As the most recent example of this class of building we may add one or two details respecting the interior. The bank-room is, of course, on the ground floor, and is 90 feet by 35, and 19 feet high. The manager's rooms adjoin it; and the remainder of the ground floor is divided into sets of offices, with a distinct entrance at the corner of Carey-street and Star-yard. Except the manager's apartments, at the Chancery-lane end of the first, second, and attic floors, the whole of the upper part is also divided into offices. The basement forms the strong room of the bank, and is fitted with a hydraulic lift for raising and lowering heavy boxes. The cost of the building was about 30,000l. Another Union Bank, for the same company, is fast rising on the site of the old bank of Sir William Lubbock, in Mansion House-street. This, too, is Italian in style, and will also be a stately structure, worthy, no doubt, of the practised hand of the architect, Mr. P. C. Hardwick; but, whilst possessing the solid character which Mr. Hardwick never fails to impart to buildings of this class, it hardly promises to attain the same striking nobility of aspect as that in Chancery-lane. Mr. Hardwick has completed this year yet another great bank, that of Messrs. Barclay, Bevan, and Co., in Lombardstreet, a work of great importance and dignity; but, as it seems to us, far too massive in style for the narrow street in which it stands.

Whilst speaking of banks we may as well refer to the remarkable building approaching completion for the National Provincial Bank of England, at the corner of Threadneedle-street, adjoining the old South Sea House. In this we have a more decided return to the old classical model, and a bolder employment of sculpture than in any building erected in London for a considerable period. The peculiar form of the site, however, and the necessity for economizing space, prevented the architect from following any particular model, if he were so disposed. The building is of the Roman Corinthian order, the lofty fluted columns forming a main feature of the design. Of these

there are three single in the principal front, with coupled columns at the end and at the curve, on either side of the entrance. There is but a single row of windows, one between each column, and above each window is a large relief representing, as would seem, science, the arts, manufactures, commerce, agriculture, and navigation; and over the doorway one still larger, of the nations bringing the fruits of the earth to Britain; whilst the architrave is crowned by a large allegorical group over the entrance, and over each column statues of London and the chief provincial towns. The sculpture is designed in a simple and manly style, and well and boldly executed, and certainly produces a very striking effect. How it will stand the smoke and atmosphere of Bishopsgate we hardly like to forecast; but as we saw it with the newly-erected statues, standing out sharply against the clear blue sky of one of the brightest days of last September, the appearance was very striking. The building is still too much cumbered about with scaffolding to be properly seen, but we advise the reader to take an opportunity of visiting it before the smoke and rain have dimned its freshness. The bank-room, we ought to add, promises to be almost as novel and striking as the exterior. The ceiling is coved, and, in addition to the windows, it will receive light from three dome-shaped lanterns. The architect is Mr. J. Gibson.

As an example of the application of Gothic to our street architec-. ture, we engrave the Crown Life Assurance Office, by St. Dunstan's church, Fleet-street (Cut No. 6). The engraving so clearly shows the design, that we are spared from describing it. As will be seen, it is a pretty close rendering of Venetian, and the principle is carried out most conscientiously in all the details. Portland stone is the material used in the front and capitals, and polychromatic effect is obtained by means of red Mansfield, Forest of Dean, and blue Warwick stone, with Sicilian marble over the arches. The architect was Mr. T. Newenham Deane. Another very elegant adaptation of round arched Italian Gothic to our office architecture, may be seen in a large building in Lombard-street, with a second front in Clement'slane, opposite the Royal Insurance Office. It was designed by Mr. Waterhouse, the architect of the Manchester Assize Courts, and though not in any way comparable with that building, it shows that Mr. Waterhouse can design effectively in a very different style, and is a rich yet unobtrusive structure. The Clement's-lane front, though similar in style, differs considerably from that in Lombard-street, from which it is cut off by a small building at the corner of the lane, and produces a feeling of freshness from the likeness in dissimilitude. Another but more florid Italian range of offices, in Cornhill with, like it, a second dissevered front in Bishopsgate-street, and also making similar use of polished granite shafts, may in other respects be contrasted with it, by its unusually abundant employment of carving, and generally florid style; but it is at present far from finished, and cannot therefore be fairly judged. Of this Mr. E. Woodthorpe is the architect. Opposite the Bishopsgate front of this again, at the corner of Leadenhall-street, an exceedingly elaborate semi-Italian structure, designed by Mr. T. Allom, is fast rising for the London and Lancashire Insurance Company.

Our space is so nearly exhausted that we must pass over a multitude of other more or less important or remarkable buildings of a like kind, both within and without the City, of which we had prepared notes: but probably these general remarks and representative instances will suffice to convey a notion of the substantial and costly character of the commercial buildings that are rising up on every hand. To one whole class, however, and in its present architectural phase a very remarkable class, the warehouses, no particular reference has been made. But they have been spoken of somewhat fully in previous years, and further mention of them must be deferred to another opportunity.

Just one word must, however, be given to what constitutes so noteworthy a feature in our recent urban architecture-the club-houses and hotels. The New City Club, in George-yard, Lombard-street, designed by Mr. J. H. Rowley, of which we have before spoken, is finished externally, and is a spacious and very striking building, appearing the more so, no doubt, from the narrow out-of-the-way court in which it is placed, and the peculiar shape imposed upon it by the irregularity of the site. It is rather florid Renaissance; prominence being given to the entrance by a showy portico with columns of polished red granite. The Whitehall Club, Parliamentstreet, designed by the late Mr. Lightly, is also a florid Renaissance structure, three stories high, with lonic columns in the ground floor, and Corinthian in the first or principal floor; surmounted with a bold cornice, and ornamented with rather coarsely-executed carvings in very high relief of figures, flowers, &c., and in the principal front a range of vases above the second floor. Only the exterior is yet completed. Pall Mall is to have a Junior Carlton Club-house, designed by Mr. David Brandon, added to its long array of similar palaces.

We must be content to mention the completion of the magnificent Langham Hotel, Portland-place, designed by Messrs. Giles and Murray. Of its class it is the noblest yet erected: of the sumptuousness of the interior, ample accounts have appeared in the newspapers. The Holborn front of the Inns of Court Hotel, Messrs. Lockwood and Mawson, architects, is sufficiently advanced to allow us to speak with some certainty of its being in its way decidedly successful. The Lincoln's Inn front is in a less forward state. Polished granite shafts will play a prominent part in each-whilst the work is new.

The street architecture of the provincial towns must this year be wholly passed over. Yet it has been almost as actively prosecuted in them, in their several degrees, as in London. Before us lies a list of above twenty of our busier towns, with notes in detail of particular buildings in each, and on at least the principal of which we had hoped to be able to remark.

We have still a word to say on the street improvements of London. For the Holborn Valley Improvement, several houses have been pulled down, but building operations seem to linger. Nor do the City authorities appear to make much way with their Meat and Poultry Market, and Smithfield Improvements, the place hardly showing signs of change since this time last year. New Farringdonroad has been a good deal obstructed by the works of the Metropo

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litan Railway; but the City Industrial Dwellings, and three or four large stacks of handsome warehouses and workshops are removing from it a little of its desolate, unfinished aspect. The Metropolitan Board of Works, like all large bodies, move slowly but in this matter of street improvement they are not quite stagnant. They have let this year pass like the last without commencing the new street from Blackfriars to the Mansion House, and the delay we may hope will at least lead them to see the necessity of making some provision against the great additional traffic they will thus throw upon that already fearfully over-loaded City centre. Along Southwark-street one or two more warehouses have been built, but the place grows up very tardily. A little thing that has happened here will probably lead the Board to use more prevision in drawing their future Bills for the Houses of Parliament. As will be remembered, a subway was formed along Southwark-street for the reception of gas and water-pipes, &c., in order to render unnecessary the breaking up of the street whenever the pipes had to be relaid, or even reached. But the Southwarkstreet Act has no clause to compel the use of the subway, and now the Southwark Water Company declines to use it, and so all the old 'gas and water annoyances are likely to be perpetuated. Session the Metropolitan Board lost their Bill for making a thoroughfare through Hamilton-place to Park-lane; but obtained an Act for continuing the Commercial-road into Whitechapel, by Commercialstreet, and for the removal of Middle-row, Holborn. Carey-street, Chancery-lane, is to be widened by setting back its northern side; and some trifling widening of the Strand is to be made by St. Clement's Dane. One of the most remarkable alterations in London is proceeding noiselessly on the Marquis of Westminster's estate. Grosvenor-place will be carried in a nearly direct line to the Grosvenor Hotel, the lower part being widened to 60 feet; whilst west of Grosvenor-place, several streets will be more or less cleared away. In all, about 160 houses, beginning with the mansions next St. George's Hospital, will be removed, and about 60 first-class houses built in their place. These are intended to have a good deal of architectural character, Mr. Street having been called in to design some, Mr. Barry others, in which terra-cotta is to be largely used in the decorations; and some are entrusted to Mr. Cundy. Opposite the Grosvenor Hotel the improvements will terminate with the Belgrave Mansions, a large block of buildings comprising maisons meubles, of 200 rooms in the upper floors, whilst the ground-floor will be appropriated as a superior restaurant, shops, &c.

7. BRIDGES, DOсks, &c.

The foundation-stone of Blackfriars Bridge has been laid, and by next year we may expect to see very perceptible progress. Of the bridges higher up the Thames, that at Hampton Court is the only one which has proceeded far; but however useful, it will hardly be very ornamental. The Clifton Suspension Bridge has been opened, and appears to be in all respects successful. Among projected bridges the most remarkable is one to cross the Mersey from Derby-square,