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  From a
first glance at our map annotated with branches, Martins Bank does seem to
have the East Coast of England pretty well covered, but despite the push to
fill gaps in the branch portfolio as late as the Summer of 1969, the Bank is
unable to populate East Anglia with anywhere near the number of branches held
by its biggest rival. Barclays in the East of England is like Martins in the
North – branches EVERYWHERE. This position is inherited through
Barclays’ amalgamation with and takeover of many small banks throughout the
Eastern Counties, which is a process similar of course to how Martins
achieved its own dominance of the North and the smaller banks there. The legacy of the Quakers gives the City of
Norwich its own large and comprehensive network of Barclays branches, similar
in coverage to Martins’ domination of Cities such as Liverpool, Manchester
and Newcastle upon Tyne.
 Even as far west as King’s Lynn, Barclays
can respond to Martins’ one solitary little branch (left), with FIVE of its own, and a further
four along the coast road of The Wash to Hunstanton! Barclays is also well respresent across
Fenland to Peterborough. With a proven track record of FIRSTS Martins does actually
manage to be the first to open a branch in the Eaton and Cringleford area of
Norwich, but by the time the new building is completed, the keys are handed
to Barclays who kept and ran the place until 2018!
Hindsight,
and “what might have been” are, of course, useless commodities after the
fact, and lovely as it would be to think that Martins had gone on to fill
East Anglia with its own rival network of Branches, time was very much
against the Bank, whose resources had already begun to dry up. As we know however, the mass closure of
branches - first slowly in the 1980s - then in unstoppable waves from the
early 2000s onwards, have put paid to ANY Bank’s hopes of East
Anglian domination! Our rather
unscientific map fails to show Martins Bank Colchester – Martins Bank’s only
representation in Essex, which was once a flagship branch. With a larger branch just around the
corner, and two more in the town, Barclays has no need for this imposing
building at the time of the merger…
 M
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