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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. 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… |
In Service:
1865 until 23 February 1970 Image
© Barclays Ref: 0030-0173 |
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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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Intellectual Property Rights © Martins Bank
Archive Collections 1988 to date. M M |
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