A massive High Victorian `Venetian?-style corner building by R. Cutlan built in 1874 for the coal owners and exporters, Cory Bros, who moved to Cory's Building (NPRN 18396) on the opposite corner in 1889. The building was then occupied by Midland Bank whose architect T. B. Whimney made alterations to the ground-floor windows and doors in 1898. The building was extended in 1902?3 and 1914?15 in a similar style by the architect Henry Budgen.

Built of bathstone and yellow-brick with inlayed terracotta panels and pink- and grey-granite columns, the structure is four storeys with ten bays facing Bute Street and seven facing James Street, with a narrow bay at the corner. Throughout, the bays are delineated by pilasters accented with vertical strips of terracotta panelling. The first storey has articulated granite columns with floral capitals between which are round arches around the sash windows and panel doors, with relief decorations on the keystones and in the spandrels. The second-storey windows are within round arches supported on granite columns with relief designs in the spandrels above which is a cornice decorated with floral designs. The third-storey has pairs of narrower windows in similar arches above which is a decorated band of yellow-brick, bathstone, and terracotta. The top floor has similar arches windows in all but the five southernmost bays of the Bute Street facade, which are in rectangular opening. The building is topped by a heavy cornice with paired brackets connected by swags.

Inside, the James Street entrance leads to a polygonal wood-panelled lobby and then to the banking hall which has wooden panelled counters with partitions with frosted glass, decorated ceiling beams, and black and white Carrara marble floor tiles.

(Sources: Victorian Society Tour Notes, VS01/16; Newman, Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan (London: 1995), pp. 269-70; Cadw Listed Buildings Database).
A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 12.06.2018