Northern outpost…
Longtown is Martins Bank’s most northerly branch, and being less
than five miles from Gretna, it is as much of an outpost as the Bank’s
branches in Norfolk, Kent and Jersey. The pioneering spirit of the Bank comes
to the fore when Longtown Manager Mr John Tennant (see gallery below) makes
the journey from the North of Cumberland to the South coast to open
Southampton Branch in 1935. Although
Martins does not officially extend into Scotland, it does have the benefit of
a branch of Lewis’s Bank in Glasgow between 1958 and 1967. Martins Bank’s
ties with two Scottish banks – the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of
Scotland, are inherited by Barclays and useful to them until at least the mid
1980s, when all three banks jointly run campaigns and special offers aimed at
children. We are grateful to our friend Don Swainston for supplying
from his collection, this image of a Longtown cheque from June 1939. Longtown
survives the merger with Barclays in 1969, and remains open in the
Twenty-First Century until October 2017…
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In Service: 1876 until
Friday 06 October 2017
Image © 1937 Barclays
Ref 0030-1731
Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
- Don Swainston
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