11-44-60 Ormesby

Despite having the most branches of any of Martins’ districts, the North East is not left out of the Bank’s 1960s expansion plans, and in 1964 they open this attractive little sub branch at Ormesby. Not quite busy enough to warrant self-accounting status, the branch nevertheless opens six days a week on reduced hours. This is typical of Martins Bank’s smaller offices in areas where the customer base is likely to be small traders who need regular fixed banking hours, especially when no nightsafe facilities are installed.

The Bank manages to fit a lot into a small space, and this is typical of the newer 1960s sub-Branches. It’s really hard to imagine nowadays, but in Martins’ time, the economics of the time means that profits are made by opening more and more offices - Remember, these are the days when the internet and cash machines are still science fiction and the only way a customer can access cash is to leave their home, and call into a convenient local bank branch to collect it!

We do wonder if this novel idea might take off today when banks do everything they can, in order to make us all stay at home, so they can then tell us they are closing the local branch because we don’t use it any more! Ormesby survives the merger with Barclays, serving the local community for almost thirty years until the doors are shut for the last time at the end of January 1993.

In Service: 24 March 1964 until 29 January 1993