On 15 December
1969, the “Appointed Day” in the Barclays Bank Act, hundreds of Martins Bank
Branches turned overnight into Branches of Barclays. Ever since, that number
has reduced as ways of doing business along with competition, trends, and any
number of factors backed up by the ever more sophisticated abilities of the
computer have all done away with the need for there to even BE bank
branches. Just a little more than twenty years into the new Century, we find
most banks are closing the equivalent of one branch a day EACH – that’s
easily over 2000 a year. That we are still left with more than thirty of the
seven hundred Martins Branches that were subsumed by Barclays says much about
the strong foundations of the Banks that themselves came together to create
the modern-day Martins Bank in 1928. We thought that it might be a fitting
tribute to those branches still standing, and even those who are on the brink
of being given the chop to feature here, showing in bricks and mortar, just
how strong the name of Martins remains, more than fifty years on from the
merger…
THE FOLLOWING LIST OF ORIGINAL MARTINS
BANK BRANCHES THAT ARE STILL OPEN, WAS LAST CHECKED ON 15 APRIL 2023