|
 How grand
does Salisbury Branch look! - Certainly worthy of a cathedral city. Martins arrives in Salisbury in 1955, and
in 1962 the Bank opens a sub-Branch at Salisbury Cattle Market. A victim of merger “duplication”, the
sub-Branch is closed in 1969, barely seven years old.
Salisbury Branch itself fares much better, surviving as a Branch of
Barclays until 1996. In the twenty-first Century – in its guise as a pizza restaurant
– 1 Castle Street Salisbury makes news headlines all over the World, as the
setting for the infamous Novichok poisoning of a former Russian agent and his
daughter. You can see a side by side comparison of Branch and Pizza
Restaurant in our “Martins Then and Now” feature a little further down this
page. For our main Salisbury feature, we journey back to 1956, when optimism is very much in
the air, and the idea that Martins will ever merge with anyone is still a
very silly one! Martins Bank Magazine
visits Salisbury Branch when it is only a few months old and has everything
to look forward to – the happy smiling staff still manage to shine through
this article which goes into the usual and perhaps unitentional raptures
about the local surroundings…
|
In Service: 1955 until 1996
Image © Barclays Ref
0030-2543
|
|
 WHEN
first we met Mr. E. MacDougall it was on the occasion of our official visit
to Wooler Branch, which is almost our furthest North Branch, in November
1949. Now he is managing our new Branch at Salisbury which is one of our
furthest South offices. Although conditions of life and the outlook of the
people are in many respects quite different from those to which Mr. and Mrs.
MacDougall have been accustomed they have in the short space of less than a
year adapted themselves so well to their new environment that they feel they
really “belong”. The city is, of course, extremely beautiful yet not by
any means the sleepy cathedral city of popular imagination where Time has
stood still. It is a very busy place with many excellent shops, a large and
prosperous market and the focal point of the countryside for miles around.
There is a little light industry but the emphasis is on agriculture and the
city is much visited by the tourist from places such as Bournemouth and
Southampton.
 We
were interested to see on the outskirts the Harvard Hospital where you can
have a free holiday provided you will allow yourself to be given a common
cold. This is, of course, the much publicised hospital at which research is
being carried out to discover more about the cause and control of this
scourge, and volunteers are in constant demand for experimental purposes. While conceding the beauty of Salisbury Cathedral Mr. and
Mrs. MacDougall were obviously impressed with Durham Cathedral in their
native North. Salisbury's edifice does not dominate the city like Durham's
fortress-cum-church on the rock which, especially in early morning, raises
its towers to the sky through a sea of mist, adding an ethereal note to its
majestic and austere beauty.
Yet the church in the meadows does
dominate the city by virtue of the crowning glory of its magnificent spire,
the tallest in England and so beautiful that one is forced to turn and gaze
at it again and again. The cathedral setting is uncrowded and the building
rises from an oasis of green surrounded by trees. The interior is not as
beautiful or noteworthy as some of our other cathedrals, but its external
glory has no counterpart. We wandered in a
leisurely way through quiet shop-lined walks from the station to our Branch
in Castle Street, avoiding the principal streets congested with traffic. We
enjoyed looking at the antique shops, the bookshops and other establishments
of a cultured nature which give so much character and " quality "
to the city. Our office is in a fine
situation looking towards the market square and the Branch with its facade of
honey-coloured stone has been tastefully blended with its surroundings.
|
The interior follows the
trend of modern bank architecture—woodwork of walnut, sunken circular ceiling lights, and a
spacious, airy and cheerful atmosphere. As in the case of other new
Branches, ample room has been provided for expansion when the days of the
credit squeeze are over and business is unimpeded. We passed the local head
office of one of the other banks which employs a staff of ninety—an
indication of the importance of the city and also of the task facing Mr.
MacDougall in a place where our competitors are so strongly entrenched.
Mr. MacDougall has spent
all his time in the North-East, apart from the few months in Liverpool which
preceded his new appointment. He entered the bank in 1922 and served at
Coxhoe, Chester Road, Easington Colliery, Newcastle City Office,
North-Eastern District Office, Alnwick, Morpeth, Wooler and Ashington
before his present appointment.
|
Image ©
Barclays Ref 0030-2543
|
|
Mr. J. R. Williams, his second-in-command,
joined the Bank in the Northern District at Sedbergh and his service
includes spells at Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancaster, Croydon, and Bruton Street
and on London District Office Relief. Mr. M. R.
Board comes from Taunton and commenced his service at Waterloo Place. The
fourth member of the staff is Miss Rosemary I. J. Chalk, who lives a few
miles outside the city and is proving herself a capable and attractive
member of the staff.
|
|
Image ©
Barclays Ref 0030-2543
|
We were very glad to meet Mrs.
MacDougall and to entertain her and Mr. MacDougall to lunch. Later in the
afternoon we went out to their home at Honiton for tea and were very
interested in the attractive conversion which has been made of their house
from an older building. A not-too-large garden has for a background a fine
view of field and country, and their garden is divided from a field by a
low wall.
This arrangement has its
drawback in that herbaceous subjects apparently make tasty cattle fodder
and while we were having tea a horse in the next field was busy eating the
sunflowers!
Salisbury is not an easy place to reach
direct from Liverpool and the only satisfactory plan is to go to London
first. We think that the Branch will do well and that the name of the Bank
will be worthily upheld and spread in the important county of Wiltshire.
|
|
 Time appears to have
been reasonably kind to 1 Castle Street, and after Barclays has finished
with it, a tasteful lick of paint transforms our Branch into a specialist
pizza restaurant. In all the comparisons we have so far made of how Martins
Branches used to look – and how they have changed – this is the first time
we have had to mention in connection with a former Branch of the Bank, such
a bizarre, outrageous and downright horrible event as that which took place
on 4 March 2018. Espionage and the evil intent of a foreign power to poison
its enemies, is surely the stuff of 1960s spy novels and films, yet
here in Salisbury, at 1 Castle Street, such a story plays out in real life
in the twenty-first Century. Despite
the perpetrators appearing to be both bumbling and bungling, having given
very implausible accounts of themselves and their actions and reasons for
being in Salisbury that day, an
extremely hostile act is perpetrated, which causes acute and painful
illness to six people. One of them (who was not even a target of the
attack), dies…
|
|
|
|
