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The town of Berwick upon Tweed is a quite unusual
place. For one thing it has,
throughout history, changed hands between England and Scotland many times. Add to this the legend that by leaving the town’s name out
of the peace treaty at the end of the crimean war, Berwick is technically
still at war with Russia, and you know it must be somewhere quite
special. The Alnwick and County Bank opens a branch there, which
operates for a total of ninety-five years, but for only two months of that
under the ownership of Barclays. The Alnwick and County Bank’s rarely seen
symbol of the Bear in the Woods becomes extinct in 1875, when the North
Eastern Banking Company takes over its branches. The Branch photograph shows two more endangered species, a
Martins office - which through the economies of reducing branch duplication following
the merger, has fallen victim to early closure - and a good old fashioned
British red telephone box. |
In Service:
1865 until 23 February 1970 Image
© Barclays Ref: 0030-0173 |
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The latter might of course be eyed with some bemusement by
today’s 11 year olds, who having never seen a red (or indeed ANY kind of) phone box before, will probably be wondering if “The Doctor” has a new time machine… |
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Berwick Branch remains open as Martins until 23 February
1970, when business is transferred to the local Barclays Branch at 22 Hide
Hill.Over the years Berwick upon Tweed has had
FIVE sub branches, although one of them is technically mobile. Banking has been
transacted at the CORN EXCHANGE, LOWICK, SPITTAL and TWEEDMOUTH, and on the HOLY ISLAND of Lindisfarne, where a manager
with car full of cash, drives out over the sea to serve the islanders. It’s
something of a shame then, that when Martins Bank Magazine visits Berwick in
1965, there seems to have been so little to write home about… And so to Berwick with views most of the way of Bamburgh, Beal Sands, the Farne Islands and Holy Island to seaward, and Cheviot to the north. Berwick
has known Romans, Saxons, Danes and Scots
and there are as many Scots as English in the Borough today, and some Scottish banks. A town which changed hands 13 times in the 340 years prior to
1482 can be expected to show its
chequered story in its castle, its
bridges, its fortifications and the variety of its architecture. Our branch,
newly decorated, blends admirably
with an adjoining hotel where at lunch we enjoyed some of the best Tweed salmon we have ever tasted.
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