Lloyds Bank, 222-225 Strand, City of Westminster (south side). A major thoroughfare, the Strand runs east to west from Trafalgar Square to Temple Bar. Named from the Old English 'strond', meaning the edge of a river, as before modern embankments and land reclamation it ran alongside the north bank of the River Thames. Number 222-225 is a late nineteenth-century four-storey building with a mansard roof and dormer windows. On the ground floor are Doric pilasters on each side of the three entrances. Over the entrance on the left and right are oval windows above doors decorated with fish motifs. Above the central doors is a semi-circular cast-iron decorated window, and a sign for 'Lloyds Bank Limited Law Courts Branch'. The first-floor windows have parapets, and the second floor a cast-iron balcony, the central section supported by classical figures. Corinthian pilasters through the second and third storeys. On the fourth floor, caryatid pilasters support a pediment with a lion's head keystone and tall chimneys sit either side of the roof. From 1612 the site was occupied by the Palsgrave Head Tavern, a favourite haunt of the playwright Ben Johnson, and named after Frederick Palsgrave who married James I’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth. The Tavern was demolished in 1883 to make way for the ‘Royal Courts of Justice Restaurant, with interiors by Goymour Cuthbert and William Wimble. It closed after 3 years and remained unoccupied until 1895, when it was converted into a Lloyds Bank branch. It now forms part of the Outer Temple barristers’ chambers and is Grade II listed, number 1236755.