A 231 year old banking connection with one Bath address is soon to be broken with the closure of Nat West’s High Street branch.
Both that unit and another branch in Milsom Street – which has already closed – will be moving to a new address in Stall Street in early October.
The High Street  branch closes at 5pm on Monday October 2nd. The new branch at 24-25 Stall Street – across the road from M&S – opens at 9 am on Thursday, October 5th.
The Grade 2 listed Old Bank is on the site of the oldest surviving bank in Bath. The site has been used continuously as a bank since at least 1786. It was opened, at no.17 High Street, as the ‘High Street Bank’, by Robert Clement.
Clement, since the 1750s had been carrying on some banking activities as part of his nearby drapery business.
Subsequently it had various name changes and amalgamations, for instance in 1906 it was the Union of London and Smith’s Bank, and was rebuilt in its current form – in 1913/14 – when it became the National Provincial Bank by the prestigious London firm of Dunn, Watson and Curtis Green in a Neo-Palladian style.
I’m much enjoying your posts, Richard, thank you! This is fascinating – I see that The Ivy is coming to the Milsom Street site; do we yet know the fate of this branch?
Thanks Emma. The Milsom Street branch will be incorporated – along with the High Street – in the new bank branch opposite M & S.
Sad to see another bank closing down here, at the current rate only the little Coop will be left! What a decline in banking presence on this great street. My own bank moved down to the a** end of beyond that is Southgate, where banking seems to be something conducted by teenagers wandering around with i-pads. It is not the same…