11-41-50 Lilliput

Worthy of something from the book “Gulliver’s Travels”, Martins Bank Lilliput certainly looks like a Branch in miniature. Customers of Martins, and then Barclays have been served here in the Parkstone area of Poole from 1936 until the beginning of 2013. The original Martins Branches at Poole and Lilliput are now both closed, (Poole in 2012) but the business has been shared shared between three newer Barclays outlets at Poole, Parkstone and Canford Cliffs. Martins Bank Magazine visits Lilliput for the first time in 1962, and fills its report, as usual, with plenty about the local area as well as the Branch and its Staff..

1952 04 MBM Talking to a friend who formerly lived in Liverpool, but is now resident in Bournemouth, about his impressions of the district he said: - “Above everything else one is conscious here of the endless rolling on of time”. It would be hard to describe one's impressions more aptly.

In service: 13 January 1936 – 18 January 2013

Image © Barclays Ref 0030-3374

In many ways this part of the country must be more historic than most. It was from Poole that a flourishing trade with Newfoundland was carried on when the hinterland was more important as a wool producing area than Yorkshire. In the nearby New Forest the red-headed son of William the Conqueror met his death from an unseen marksman. From Evening Hill Dean Swift gazed out on the sun setting behind Poole Harbour and at the tiny boats mirrored on the placid surface far below, and in the world in miniature spread beneath his feet the idea of the little men of Lilliput is said to have come to him. Nearby is the Hardy country and in a lane not far away died Lawrence of Arabia, victim of a motor-cycling accident. Here, too, lived Robert Louis Stevenson, though his house is no longer to be seen, having succumbed to a bomb during the last war. On the quay at Poole stands the ancient Custom House and outside it is the old weighing machine dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. The charges are set out on a metal plaque which is affixed,—a halfpenny a half-hundredweight to cover the wages of the porter as well as the charges of the Port Authority! Time marches on. And on a perfect morning in late summer we called at our Lilliput branch before the commencement of business and with the aid of Mr. Silcock's car we went down to the jetty, five minutes away, and with the calm waters of Poole Harbour for a setting, and Brownsea Island, where Baden-Powell held the experimental camp which led to the founding of the Boy Scout Movement 45 years ago for a background, we took the accompanying photograph of the staff.

Images © Barclays Ref 0030-3374

If anything were needed to complete the historical authenticity it is surely to be found in the person of Mr. Beale, our 77 years' old taxi driver who took us from Bournemouth to Lilliput on that late August morning, for he was an ex-Regular soldier and a veteran of the Boer War and had known “B-P” and Lord Kitchener.

Mr. Silcock, who entered the service in the Manchester district in 1929, has only been at Lilliput since June and this is his first managerial appointment. Mr. and Mrs. Silcock have found themselves a really lovely home quite close to the sea and as far as holidays at the seaside are concerned their two girls Pat and Penny would have a job to find a better bit of beach. We missed seeing Mr. J. H. Ison who was on holiday at the time of our visit and instead we met Mr. Whale, of the London District Office Relief Staff. Miss M. C. McChesney is the only lady member of the staff and she has only been in the Bank since June.

During the morning we went for a short walk around the district to get a better idea of the place.There are pinewoods everywhere and the scent of the pines in the hot sunshine and the colour and beauty in the gardens of the very expensive houses which line the tree-embowered avenues will be an abiding memory of our visit. Lilliput has a Bournemouth postal address but pays its rates to Poole and a tug-of-war is in progress at the moment to decide this anomaly one way or the other. It ought to be in with Poole but there is no gainsaying the value of the Bournemouth address from the point of view of the tradesmen.