11-92-20 Bristol Clifton

Martins Bank’s Branch at 9a Whiteladies Road opens a year after the start of the Second World War. Seen above in the 1940s, the building is charming and like many of the Bank’s Branches it enjoys a corner aspect. Thanks to the work of our friends at the British Newspaper Archive, we are now able to bring you a variety of Branch opening announcements and advertisement from the 1920s up to the 1950s. This particular advertisement appears in the Western Daily Press on18 March 1940, announcing the opening of the new Branch. Clifton is handy too, for employees of the BBC whose Western Regional Service on 276 metres broadcasts from a studio just down the road at 21/23 Whiteladies Road, so who knows which famous broadcasters might have popped in to cash a cheque from time to time? The South Western District of Martins Bank is the newest (and therefore most short-lived) of its business regions.

Newspaper Image © Northcliffe Media Limited Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD

Image reproduced with kind permission of

The British Newspaper Archive

In Service: 10 March 1940 until 9 February 1979

Image © Barclays Ref: 0030/0428

What is lost in that sense is more than made up for by a flurry of activity in the South West in the mid to late 60s, which sees a programme of rapid expansion, with many new Branches, and the refurbishment or complete rebuilding of others.

The South West certainly does intend to go out with a bang… Then of course, 1960s architecture and building policy arrives, sparking change (and raised eyebrows to this day) across the UK, and the refurbishment of Martins’ Bristol Clifton office in 1968 becomes another prize for Barclays – a similar “Branch on a plate” arrangement to Martins’ Branch at EATON, Norwich. The makeover means that this bright and shiny new office is ready for the seventies…

Branch Images © Barclays Ref: 0030/0428

Images © Barclays Ref: 0033/0104

Clifton, along with the Branches of the Bank that have been rebuilt and/or redesigned at CHELTENHAM and GLOUCESTER, benefits from Martins’ policy of commissioning new artworks, designed to reflect local life or history.

All three receive newly designed pieces by the ceramic artist Philippa Threlfall, by whose kind permission this colour photo is shown. The ceramic mural represents the history and trade links of the City of Bristol. The fate of Philippa Threlfall’s artworks for Martins Bank remains something of a mystery, and there is an appeal from Philippa in our MOST WANTED section…