Last Bank Standing

Earlier this year it was announced that the TSB at 217 Chillingham Road would close its doors on 29 September 2020.

Within the memory of many locals, Heaton boasted five banks and that’s not counting those on Shields Road other than the two on the Heaton Road corner. Let’s take a walk past them from South to North (and so, conveniently, more or less in chronological order of their opening).

Shields Road

But first, we must go back to 1893 and cross Shields Road to the first bank to include Heaton in its name: the Byker and Heaton branch of the Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence Bank, which, in 1859, in the immediate aftermath of a banking crisis, had been established in Newcastle by a group of Quakers. The ‘joint-stock’ (ie owned by shareholders) Northumberland and Durham District Bank had collapsed a couple of years earlier so there was an appetite for private banks owned by their partners. Londoner Thomas Hodgkin is worth a special mention: he was also a very respected historian, an important member of the Society of Antiquaries, and a philanthropist. He gifted Hodgkin Park and Benwell Dene to the city.

We know that in 1897, the branch manager at 168 Shields Road was J B Wilson. Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence became part of Lloyds Bank in 1902.

Two years later, a branch of the Newcastle Savings Bank opened across the road at 171 Shields Road on the south east corner of Heaton Road. This bank had been founded in Newcastle in 1818 and operated successfully for over 150 years until, in 1971, it merged with South Shields Savings Bank to become Northumberland and Durham Trustee Savings Bank. Following an Act of Parliament reforming banks in 1976, it became part of Trustee Savings Bank North East, which later became known as TSB. In December 1995, TSB merged with Lloyds.

As you can see, building is very handsome. We know that a caretaker lived on the top floor and that, in 1910, the manager was G A Thompson. It is still a busy bank.

Eagle-eyed Heatonians will know that there was already a Lloyds Bank at this junction. In 1908, the old 168 Shields Road branch had moved into an attractive new building across the road at number 167. In 1910, the manager was A W Burn. You can still see the bank’s name on the rain water hopper.

Although the two Lloyds TSB branches remained open for some years after their 1990s merger, in 2013, it was eventually the TSB building at 171 that was rebranded as Lloyds: the original Lloyds at 167 closed.

The building has recently been renovated and now contains 22 one and two bedroom apartments. Its name, as well as the pipework, a reminder of it its history.

Chillingham Road

And so to the branch which has been in the news recently. Before being converted into a bank, the premises at 217 Chillingham Road were occupied by a draper’s shop. It was on 29 March 1909 that it became a bank, a sub branch of the already mentioned Byker and Heaton branch of Lloyds on the corner of Heaton and Shields Road. It was to remain a sub branch until 1946 when it became a full branch in its own right.

The bank can just be seen at the end of the block in the above picture. The two nearest shops are D Flatman and Economy Enterprises but the name of the third is not clear. Note the vending machines on the door frames. Can anyone say when it was taken? It looks like a Laszlo Torday photograph.

In 1982, the bank had a ‘through-the-wall cashpoint’ installed. Following the merger of Lloyds and TSB, only a handful of branches displayed the new Lloyds TSB livery. But overnight, on 28 June, the remaining 2,380, including our sub-branch, were rebranded in a ‘military-style operation’. All branches were rebadged internally and externally – this involved nine miles of fascia signs, 18 miles of neon tube and 66,000 new merchandising units. Despite a fire at the warehouse where the new signs were stored, the operation was a success.

But as part of reforms which followed the 2008 banking crisis, on 9 September 2013 Lloyds and TSB once more became two separate banks.

Heaton Road

With libraries and archives closed at the time we were researching this article, we haven’t been able to pin down exactly when the bank that used to stand at 112 Heaton Road opened. Using online resources, we know that in 1890, only numbers 2-40 had been built on the east side. It was probably around five years later that the block on which the bank stood opened. Certainly by 1910, 112 Heaton Road was a branch of London City and Midland Bank. In 1916, we know that the manager was Thomas Hartley Pugh.

Stephenson Road

The final branch to open met a growing need as house building spread north towards and over what we now call the Coast Road. The branch of Barclays which stood on Stephenson Road was built in 1927 at the same time as the High Heaton estate immediately to its north. The date is still clearly visible above the door. Can anybody remember when it closed?

People

Banks aren’t all about bricks and mortar, paper and coins though so we have also taken a snapshop of the Heaton residents known to have been working in banking at the time of the 1911 census.

Arthur William Burn, already mentioned, was the manager of the Lloyds Bank at 167 Shields Road. Morpeth born and bred, he was aged 41 at the time and lived in Byker. When he died in 1937, he was living in Benton.

And Boltonian, Thomas Hartley Pugh, aged just 22 and manager of the Midland branch on Heaton Road, was lodging at 14 Warton Terrace. By 1916, he had moved to 17 Armstrong Avenue so retained his short walk to work.

Edward Allison, aged 47, from Gateshead, lived at 16 Warwick Street with his wife Edith and young children, Arnold and Phyllis.

Henry Mason, aged 34, and from Longhorsley, lived at 100 Cartington Terrace but we don’t know where they worked. Quite possibly one of them was at Chillingham Road.

And there were many bank clerks, among them William Nattress. At the outbreak of WW1, he still lived where he was brought up, one of at least eight children of Jessie, a Scot, and Durham born Ralph, at 110 Addison Terrace. During the war, he was a corporal in the 5th battalion Northumberland Fusiliers but he was killed in action, aged 22, on 24 May 1915. His name appears on the Menin Gate, St Silas’s, Byker and St Andrews Church of Scotland, Sandyford Road war memorials and the memorial to the Northumberland Fusiliers 5th battalion in St Oswald’s, Walkergate. We remember him here too.

Future

But from September, there will only be the one branch bank at the corner of Heaton and Shields Road and most people in Heaton working in banking are likely to be based in the city centre or in an out of town call centre.

Many of us use online banking and the many cash points around Heaton but how long before they too disappear given that the current pandemic has accelerated the demise of cash? Now could be the time to photograph them before they are lost.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Robin Long with additional material by Chris Jackson, both of Heaton History group. Thanks to Peter Judge, Archivist at Lloyds Bank and Pam at TSB, Chillingham Road.

Sources

‘Heaton from farms to foundries’ by Alan Morgan

Lloyds Bank website

Newcastle City Libraries Torday collection

and other online sources.