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 Martins Bank opens
a Branch at Banbury in October 1958, and takes great pride in this particular
outlet. Over a number of years, internal and external images and drawings of
the branch feature in several Bank publications with many images reproduced
in colour.
Money is also spent on extra detail inside and
outside the Branch, and Martins Bank’s Coat of Arms can still be seen
displayed proudly above the door of the premises in the twenty-first
Century. A sub-branch at Banbury
Cattle Market is opened in 1961, and Martins competes with five other banks
for the custom of those who use what was one of europe’s largest Cattle
Markets. Banbury Branch is showcased as “a good example of a modern branch”,
in several editions of the Staff Association booklet ‘Inside Information’, in
articles in Martins Bank Magazine, in Martins Bank’s Annual Report and
Accounts for 1959, and a in glossy booklet which is produced in 1962 and
details the progress of the Bank to that date. We have included as many of
these images as we can here.
For our main feature we journey to Banbury in
1959, when the team from Martins Bank Magazine drops in to visit what they
describe as a young and “vigorous” branch, in a town which in May 1959 has
the incredible count of just one one hundred and twenty people on the
unemployment register!
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In Service: November 1958 until 27 February 1969
Images © Martins
Bank Archive Collections
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  In the nursery we were taught to “ride a cock horse to Banbury
Cross” and in our adolescence we made our
first acquaintance with Banbury cakes. Our only other connection with the
place was our memory of it as a stopping place on the old Great Western route
to London, and we had last stood on its antiquated station about six years
ago. It was, therefore, with some surprise that we discovered on the occasion
of our visit to the town on 5th May
that the place had received some priority in the modernisation scheme
of British Railways, and a fine new station, fully modernised, has taken the
place of the old one. Enquiring as to the reason for this, we discovered that
plans are afoot for bringing considerable light industry into the town which
will increase the present population of some 21,000 by about half as much
again in the next few years.
At the moment it is essentially a market town and its cattle
market is open four days a week, once for sheep, once for stores and attested
cattle, once for general sales and once for Irish cattle. Three of the other
banks have branches there, and it is obvious that we must open one ourselves
at the earliest possible moment. With the developments
to come, therefore, we appear to have arrived at just the right time, and in
six months our business has made most satisfactory and gratifying progress.
 At the moment, with only 120 people on the unemployment register
of the town, expansion will have to be controlled, because in a town which
has from time immemorial been concerned with the products of the surrounding countryside one cannot change its character and
industrialise it without taking careful steps to see that there is an
adequate supply of labour for the new projects, and that houses are available
for the extra workers. Our branch is
excellently situated and the famous Cross can be seen from the point of the
street in which it stands. A dignified building of honey-coloured rough
stone, with old fashioned bow windows complete with bulls eyes, its
appearance lends distinction to this part of the street. Inside, provision has been made for very
considerable expansion and the office is most generously and handsomely
appointed. The most striking and unusual architectural feature about the
interior is the rough Cotswold stone wall at the end of the counter on the
customers' side.
Facing one on entering the door it arrests the attention and the
pots of growing plants which surround the base combine with the overhead
light to create a conservatory effect which is at one and the same time as
restful and pleasing as it is unexpected.x The architect, Mr. P. Lucas,
is certainly to be complimented on the originality of thought he has brought
to bear on the designing of this branch which is fit to take its place among
the best modern buildings of its type anywhere. The same architect was
responsible for the design of our new Stratford premises. Mr. and Mrs. Raw met us at the station and we quickly
discovered that we had mutual acquaintances. Mr. Raw is related to Mr.
Charles Carter, former Chief Inspector of the Bank, and to Mr. C. A. W.
Carter, of H.O. Trustee Department. A native of Sedbergh,
his first appointment in the South was to Worcester as Pro Manager. He was
there barely a year before being asked to open the branch at Banbury.
 His previous experience included Kendal, Barrow, Hanley and
Tunstall. Mrs. Raw
comes from St. Annes, which we visited the previous week, and knows Mr. A. B.
Briggs, the Manager of our new Lytham branch, and his wife quite well. After meeting the staff and looking over
the branch we took Mr. and Mrs. Raw to lunch and then went out for a quick
look at their attractive new home, in the village of Middleton Cheney, about
three miles outside Banbury. Banbury is surrounded by tiny villages which are
being increasingly built up for residential purposes by the workers of the
growing town. Then back to the branch to take the staff
photograph (on the roof of the Manager's room). Only the previous day the
fourth member of the staff took up his duties—Mr. P. G. Forrest,
and the only native of Banbury among them. The female staff is represented by
Miss B. J. Albone, a Northampton girl whose parents have come to Banbury to
run a shop. We first had the pleasure of meeting Mr. E.
M. Ranson, Mr. Raw's second in command, some years ago at Wakefield, and it
is always nice to meet old acquaintances, albeit in new places. A pressing train time
made the schedule of our visit rather tight but it was a most heartening
experience to visit this young and vigorous branch and to have such good news
of its progress.
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