Scottish Provident Institution Building

Style
The building is made from Giffnoch sandstone with some details, such as the crest in the pediment, made from bronze. It has six floors and an an attic storey with access to the roof. The third, fourth and fifth floors are lined with Corintian style columns. The central bay is bowed and engraved upon it are four panels with carvings reperesenting Belfast's main industries at the time the building was erected - printing, ropemaking, shipbuilding, and spinning. Above it is a pediment depicting a variation of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, made from bronze, with the motto of the Order Of The Thistle, "Nemo Me Impune Lacesset" (No-one provokes me with impunity) which was first used on the coins of James VI of Scotland (James I of England). On either side of the pediment there is a sphinx facing the side of the building, and infront of it are four dolphins with open mouths facing east. The dolphins and the sphinges are all bronze.

Criticism
The noted architectural critic Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett wrote a number of books about Belfast's buildings. In his 1967 work "Buildings of Belfast, 1700-1914" he described the octagonal domes at the side of the Scottish Provident Institution as being "not very successful" and went on to say that building was "terribly heavy . . . with a nauseating marble group in a pompous aedicule" on the corner of Wellington Place.