11-01-60 Manchester Miles Platting

Another fine example of a Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Branch is this one at Miles Platting, Manchester, opened in 1888. This slightly faded image from Barclays’ collection, is taken in 1954. In 1922 when the lithographic image shown below (courtesy W N Townson Bequest) was produced, Mr A E Grey was the L & Y Manager responsible both for Miles Platting and MOSTON Branches. Martins Bank has a large number of Branches and sub-Branches concentrated in quite a small area of Manchester, and in 1967 the building of the Mancunian Way is responsible for the sealing the fate of many of these lovely old buildings. Some will make it through to the 1969 merger with Barclays and even beyond, but many are resigned to bowing out gracefully from an area whose prospects have been heading downhill for a number of years. Amazingly Miles Platting lives on until the end of 1982. A tour of the threatened Manchester Branches is undertaken in 1967 by Martins Bank Magazine.

In service: 24 June 1888 to 3 December 1982

Image © Barclays Ref 0033-0366

If you have already looked through our pages for some of these Branches, you will have seen that very little has actually been written about any of them; Miles Platting included…

1967 Miles Platting Staff MBM-Au67P24.jpg 1967 03 MBM.jpg Miles Platting Branch, on a surviving corner site where son has succeeded father as manager after fifteen years, makes the best of what it has while it can. Eventually, if left alone, it would be stranded on an island on the new Lancashire-Yorkshire motorway curving through the north of Manchester, so in a few years the Branch will be gone. Here, as in the Branches to the south, the old connections remain, profits are maintained and, despite a view of a pub, a mission and corporation flats, a cheerful philosophical and workman like approach to today’s work and tomorrow’s problems arouse admiration…

There is little difference between our two images, apart from the addition of a telephone box in the 1960s. This area has been redeveloped since the doors of this branch were finally closed in 1982…

Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections – W N Townson Bequest

Image © Barclays Ref 0033-0366

DISTRICT BANK LIMITED

472 Oldham Road

MARTINS BANK LIMITED

327 Oldham Road

WILLIAMS DEACON’S BANK

457 Oldham Road



*Mr S A Mitchell* *Joined the Bank Here* *1922 to 1925*	*Mr A E Male* *Joined the Bank Here* *1925 to 1926*	*Mr Stanley C Owen* *Manager* *1935 to 1945*	*Mr J L Whitehead* *Joined the Bank Here* *1945 to 1950*	*Mr Alan Brierley Sim* *On the staff* *1948 until 1950*	*Mr W Watson* *Manager* *1954 to 1964*



*Mr J B Cullen* *Manager* *1964 to 1967*	*Miss C Anderson* *On the Staff* *1967*	*Mr E R Y Shaw* *On the Staff* *1967*	*Miss K E Jones* *On the Staff* *1967*	*Mr B R Chadwick* *Manager* *1967 onwards*	*Mr W Marsh* *On the Staff* *1967*