A dying art... Rob’s 6,000 pictures of UK’s bank branches
READER Robert Montgomery has spent the past 13 years taking photographs of bank branches, often just before they are axed. He’s travelled the length and breadth of the country by train in pursuit of his hobby, although RMT’s Mick Lynch has temporarily brought his activities to a halt.
Robert, who lives near Heswall on the Wirral in Merseyside, was employed as a junior clerk at NatWest for five years in his youth, working in six different branches in the Liverpool area. Although he then became a bus driver, he has never lost his love for banks.
The result is that the 68-yearold has accumulated a library of some 6,000 bank branch photos – and over the past year he has been kind enough to share some of them with me.
‘It’s a hobby,’ he told me last week. ‘I’m an inveterate collector and I am fascinated by banks, whether it’s the architectural beauty of some of the branches they run – or once ran – and the cheques they used to issue.’ I asked
Robert to name his favourite (former) branches. They include the Lloyds and NatWest branches in Reigate, Surrey, that closed in August 2019 and June 2018 respectively. Magnificent buildings.
Although the Lloyds branch has since been transformed into a Gail’s bakery, the NatWest premises have yet to attract new tenants.
Despite being an affluent town with an abundance of independent stores, Reigate will lose HSBC – its last bank – in August next year.
The town will then be dependent upon the Post
Office and Nationwide Building Society for high street banking. Barclays and Santander pulled out of Reigate at the beginning of the year and 2019 respectively.
Provided the trains start working again, Robert will continue his hobby into 2023. But with closures gathering pace – 619 already this year – his options for photo opportunities are declining rapidly. Keep snapping Robert.