11-322 Halifax 2 Silver Street

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We were delighted to receive some very rare images of 2 Silver Street as it was in the 1930s, as a Branch of Martins Bank, and a wonderful colour shot of how the building looks today. This is thanks to Maria Fabrizi, who is one of four entrepreneurs operating small businesses from No 2 Silver St.

We were subsequently even more delighted to receive the period photos from Stephen Gee who has also helped us with images relating to Martins Bank’s Branch at Sowerby Bridge, and Martins Grasshoppers colleague John Robertshaw for the contemporary image of this branch.

In Service: 1780 – 1802? until 1946

Images © Stephen Gee

Maintaining two large branches in the same street does seem, on the face of it, an extravagent thing to do, yet No 2 and No 16 Silver Street are run together as branches of the newly created Martins Bank from 1928 until 1946, when No 2 is closed.

Thanks once more to Stephen Gee and John Robertshaw for these excellent views spanning more than seventy years. It’s great to see this building looking so good, and knocking spots off the dreadful modern structure to the right of the image(!) If you have images of this, or of any of the more than one thousand buildings that played host to full, sub or temporary branches of Martins Bank between 1928 and 1969, then please do get in touch with us at the usual address - martinsbankarchive@btinternet.com.

1930s Image Martins Bank Archive Collections © Stephen Gee

Image Martins Bank Archive Collections © 2015 John Robertshaw

Halifax BT39 No 2 Silver Street is a branch of the Halifax Commercial Bank, having been an original office of Messrs Hainsworth Holden Swaine and Pollard, who operated a banking service as long ago as 1779. In this image from the 1939 Halifax Area Telephone Directory – Image © 1939 BT – we see the two main Halifax Branches of the Bank are listed along with a further Branch at King Cross. Although No 16 outlives No 2 as a Martins Branch, it is nowadays a public house, whereas No 2 remained as a branch of TSB bank/Lloyds Banking Group until 2009. Our thanks to Maria Fabrizi for information and to Stephen Gee and Mike Hodgson for the images.