Designed for the National Provincial Bank of England by their in-house architects F. C. R. Palmer and W. F. C Holden and built in 1926-27 by the contractors E. Turner & Sons, this building was the last major commercial development in Butetown. It was later the site of the National Westminster Bank in Butetown.

Built on steel frames with a reinforced concrete base and faced with Portland stone throughout, it presents identical facades of five storeys with basement and seven bays to both Bute Street and West Bute Street. In front of the first and second stories are huge fluted Ionic columns on high pedestals which support a plain freise and cornice with lion heads over each column. The upper storeys are plain, with dentilated cornices above the third-storey windows, and topped by a cornice with modillions and a slightly ramped low parapet. The entrances are at the north ends of the first storeys and are under bracketed cornices topped with statues of `Equity? by J. A. Stevenson.

Internally, the bank is heavily influenced by classical examples, including plaster roundels based on Greek coins held in the British Museum. The entrances lead to a transverse corridor with a semi-circular apse with coffered ceilings to the east end and a domed lobby to the west. The open-plan Banking Hall is of a basilica-type with brightly painted orange and lavender details and Echallion marble walls. To the west is a semi-circular area with a panelled and gilded ceiling. The whole area is carried on fluted Doric marble columns with similar half columns running around the walls.

(Sources: Cadw Listed Buildings Database; Newman, Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan (London: 1995), p. 270)
A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 12.06.2018