Historic photos

Thank you for visiting our historic photos page.

After purchasing our building at 31 High Street, Haverhill in 2018 following the closure of the Natwest branch, we thought it would be nice to find out a bit more about the building and do our bit in preserving local history.

We have been working with the kind assistance of our friends at Haverhill & District Local History Group and the RBS Archive department to get this collection together. We really love our photos of old Haverhill and hope that you do too—many of them are on display in our reception area.

If anyone has photos of our building (including the White Horse pub that stood on part of the site) and of the High Street (the older the better), that they would like to share with us then we would be delighted to hear from you.

1-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

This appears to be a postcard with a view of Haverhill High Street from c.1900. Looking at the left of the picture our building is fourth along with the arched windows with a person walking past. This building was in fact demolished around 1930 in order to make way for the present building.

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Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

Here is another postcard with a similar view from around c.1900. All of the buildings on the left up to our building and beyond have long since been demolished.

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Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

This postcard is looking from the opposite direction along the High Street. Our building, London County & Westminster Bank Ltd, 1900-1911 (1st building on the right). 

Taken from “Guardbook containing postcards of branches collected by S H Clutsom, Inspector of Branches of London & County Banking Company Ltd”.

4-rbs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

And here it is, a very rare picture from 1909-1918. 

London County & Westminster Bank Ltd. Note that this is the original building on that was demolished in c.1930 to make way for our present building. 

The photograph mount contained the following manuscript:

Built in: 1890
Lease expires: 1918
Rent: £75 p. a.

5-rbs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

We believe this is the earliest picture we have of the new building from 1949. Note that the name has changed to Westminster Bank Limited.

6-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

Here are two more similar pictures of the new building from c.1949.

In those days the business of the bank was conducted on the ground floor with the two upstairs floors being the residence of the branch manager.

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Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

This picture appears to be a little later. The lamp post has been removed and the kerb lowered.

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Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

Here is the front of the building from 1951. To the left of the picture is the White Horse pub.

8-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

This is a very crisp photos of the High Street with a good view of the new building and the White Horse pub. Looking at the cars we would guess that these are late 1940’s to early 1950’s.

9-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

Clearly cars are becoming more popular. At the time this was the main Cambridge to Colchester road There was no bypass or pedestrianisation then.

7b-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

Looking at the car, we must be in the 1960’s now. The shop to the side has been demolished to make way for the construction of the Midland Bank building at 33 High Street, which itself is now due to be demolished. It gives us a good view of the side of the building and the White Horse, with former side entrance and outbuildings to the back.

11-rbs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

This is the front of the building from 1965. You can see to the left of the picture that the building has now been extended. If you look between the second and third windows, you can see that the bricks are a slightly different colour. Unfortunately this involved the demolition of the White Horse pub. Sadly so many pubs have disappeared from the High Street . In those days, there must have been 20 pubs in the town centre, and with a population of just a few thousand the public house was clearly central to life in the town.

12-hs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of
Haverhill & District Local History Group

What a great picture this is. It looks like the late 1960’s or early 1970’s and the bank are taking delivery of what looks like a new safe. Not an easy job. We had some fun ourselves trying to get the safes out again!

13-rbs.jpg

Reproduced with kind permission of RBS

Fast forward to the 1980’s. Can you see how the arched doorway to the bottom left has now been replaced by a window. The entrance is now through the foyer between the building and the former Midland Bank next door.

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This was taken by us in 2018 after we bought the building.

Note how the bottom left and bottom right windows had been made shorter to accommodate the cashpoint and night safe.

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And here we are in August 2019. The refurbishment has finally been completed, the signs are now up and we are ready to move in. Note the same bottom left and bottom right windows, we had new windows made up to match the others.

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And finally we have to give a mention to the protected ancient Black Mulberry tree (Morus Nigra) that is inconveniently located right in the middle of our car park to the rear of the building. We guess that it is several hundred years old.

The tree is considered a rare species, which is historically significant to the town of Haverhill as mulberry was used for the silk work industry undertaken by the Gurteen family in Haverhill.

We have formally named the building Mulberry House in honour of the old girl. Although we are delighted to be her custodian, she does leave an awful mess when the berries drop!