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Originally opened in
1868 by the Manchester and Salford Bank, Martins Bank’s Branch at 38 Market
Street Lancaster is acquired in 1883 by Messrs Wakefield Crewdson’s Kendal
Bank, as Lancaster is deemed to be too far away from the catchment
area of the Manchester and Salford Bank!
Ten years later, the
Branches of Wakefield Crewdson are acquired by the Bank of Liverpool, and
Lancaster continues its journey towards being part of the modern-day Martins
Bank. The fine premises comprise a
ground and three upper floors, and a basement containing the safes and other
rooms. Customers are
greeted by this mosaic, one of a number of ARTWORKS
specially commissioned by the bank. |
In Service: 1868 until 25 April 2024 Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref: 0030/1540 |
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Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref: 0030-1540 In the mid to late sixties, Martins
updates the interior of Lancaster Branch almost beyond recognition, opting
for same the smooth lines and bright lighting of the new Branch at Lancaster
University. |
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Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref: 0030-1540 |
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In the mid to late sixties, Martins
updates the interior of Lancaster Branch almost beyond recognition, using the
most up to date designs and materials, and reducing the opression of dark
wood by opting for same the smooth lines and bright lighting of the new
Branch at Lancaster University. The
use of brown asbestos will however, come back to haunt the Bank’s new owners
in the 1990s, when a major refit has to first cope with the discovery and
extremely careful removal of a substance nowadays known to be deadly. The two uppermost
floors had not been fully utilised until Barclays needed to expand its
operation at the site, and expand it did, into every one of the upstairs
rooms. This is one of a long line of
re-fits for Lancaster including two during Martins’ time. Lancaster’s sub-Branches include flagship
new premises at LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, the LANCASTER FARMERS’ AUCTION
MART, and the villages of CATON and HORNBY. Along with four more
Branches in MORECAMBE, this area
is well served by Martins Bank.
Martins’ Lancaster. |
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Roman Towns Martins Bank’s 1949 Advertising Campaign features a series
of drawings by the artist Geoffrey Wedgwood which depict the connection
between various English towns and the Roman occupation of Britain. This
advertisement features Lancaster Castle, and an explanation of the Latin
words from which “Lancaster” is derived. Lunecastrum is said to have been an
important Roman settlement. Amongst the other towns featured in this series
of advertisements are WORCESTER, LEICESTER and BUXTON. |
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Goodbye Barclays? At the time of
the 1969 merger, many Martins Branches are not simply closed, or swapped for
better equipped Barclays Branches in the same town. In fact TWENTY-TWO
Barclays Branches are closed and the business moved into the local Martins
Branches. In the North of England, where until 1969 Martins has been the
predominant Bank, the Branches are large, modernised and ready for expansion.
Barclays Bank Lancaster has until this time taken up about half of
Lancaster’s old Town Hall, a building which nowadays is a museum. Our friends at Barclays have unearthed some
rare images of what this part of the City is like in 1961. The following
three pictures show the Barclays Branch from the front and the side, and one
with a view of Martins, (the current Barclays premises), in the
background… |
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Image © Barclays Ref
0033.0932a |
Image © Barclays Ref
0033.0932b |
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It pays to advertise… |
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When your main advertising market is
newspapers and magazines, you need to be sure that your message gets through
to as many readers as possible, in order to justify the expense of taking out
an advert in the first place. Until
Banks are allowed to advertise individually on TV at the end of the 1960s,
they must use every available techinique to make their adverts stand out from
those of the competition. What seems
to us nowadays like a very strange ban on banks advertising on television,
there was what was referred to as “A gentlemen’s agreement” that it should
not be allowed, unless its purpose was a joint message from ALL Banks. This
smacks somewhat of snobbery, and doesn’t seem to fit with other prohibited
advertising of that time – Undertakers were not allowed TV ads, nor were
solicitors, and you couldn’t show the toilet bowl that the toilet cleaner was
meant for, lest it might upset those of a delicate mind(!) Martins is a little late is harnessing
the huge youth market for banking products brought about by that rare
phenomenon - full employment, but from 1964 onwards we start to see
intelligent witty and occasionally surreal copy from the Bank that “goes to extremes” to help its
customers. Before that, things were a little staid, like this generic ad used
to publicise the whereabouts of the Martins Mobile Branch Caravans. Standard
wording can be amended to fit the occasion, and room is left to cram in a
mention of any number of local Branches of the bank. Otherwise, and at a
quick glance, these ads will have been very difficult to tell apart from one
another. This reproduction is from the Bank’s
original advertising copy, as used in 1959 to publicise the Bank’s prescence
at the Lanaster Agricultural show. Whilst
the advertisement clearly shows the address both of Lancaster Branch, and of
the Bank’s Liverpool head Office, we can only hope that everyone knew where the Lancaster
Agricultural Show itself was taking place, as the advert does not tell us! |
Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections – Restored
17/05/2019 |
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*Martins
Bank Lancaster is originally allocated a Barclays sorting code number of 20-47-60
until the nearby smaller Barclays Branch is closed. The combined
business then operates under the sorting code 20-47-61. **Martins
Bank Lancaster University is originally run as a sub-Branch under the Martins
Lancaster sorting code of 11-27-50. In 1968 the
staus of the Branch is changed to “self-accounting sub-Branch” and it is
allocated its own Martins sorting code number – 11-80-80. M
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