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Another
fine example of a bank building from the days of the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Bank stands at 12-14 Darwen Street in Blackburn. In the twenty-first century, the site on
which this Branch was built still plays host to Barclays, although one of the
most hideous of 1970s replacement buildings (as you will see below) is where
today’s business is transacted. This
is a far cry from the optimism of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank, whose
illustration of their new office at Blackburn is printed in The Building News
in October, 1903 (below, right). According to the L and Y Bank records for
1922, the Manager at Blackburn at that time is Mr F W Shawcross, and he is
also responsible for two sub-branches to Blackburn at Copy Nook, Eanam, and
New Chapel Street, Mill Hill. In the
1960s Martins Bank runs the Eanam office as a full branch with its own
management. There have also been two further sub branches to Blackburn, one
at Cherry Tree, the other at Novas (an area of Blackburn known as Nova
Scotia) both of which are closed in 1941 for the Second World War, but not
re-opened. It is good to know that
whilst the traditional industries that helped to grow the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Bank are no longer there, business has still been good enough to
keep a number of Branches in Blackburn thriving well into the twenty-first
century. Thanks to Barclays’
collection of Martins Bank Images, we can take a look inside the original
Branch building: |
In Service: September 1903 until 10 May 2024 Image © Barclays
Ref 0030-0274 |
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Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref 0030-0274 |
A more genteel
age – an artists impression of Blackburn
Branch from 1903… Image © Martins
Bank Archive Collections |
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Now,
in our feature articles, we look at the retirement celebrations of two
members of the staff at Blackburn.
Although the two retirements take place twelve years apart from each
other, the leaving gifts given to each of the retirees are curiously
similar... From the Light Programme…
...to
Radio Too…
Dystopia is visited upon Blackburn... |
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Elsewhere within this archive, and in our DESIGNING MARTINS
BANK feature
in particular, we have asked the question – WHY? Why did they do that? What were they thinking? How did they get away with it? Here on the right, is a lovely colour shot from our
collection which is marked simply and somewhat mysteriously: “Film Unit, Sun
Morn”, and it gives us an atmospheric view of the Branch at Blackburn in the
late 1950s/early 1960s. Move forward a couple of decades, and the fate of
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank’s original building at Blackburn Darwen
Street seems to have been to destroy it completely, and to replace it with a
sort of bulging goldfish bowl, which has few or no redeeeming features at
all, save possibly for a more modern setting and comforts on the inside
for the staff. |
Image © Martins
Bank Archive Collections |
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On the outside, this new incarnation is foul to say
the least, yet doubtless the design is bound to have won awards somewhere
along the line. Nowadays Barclays has
to its credit, toned down the “tan” to a subtler stone/grey kind of look,
which, we suppose, is something at least.
If you are squeamish, may we suggest you look away now... |
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Images © Barclays
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