Some months ago on this page when I bemoaned and pictured the disappearing banking facilities in Marlow, the one photograph I did not have was of the Capital & Counties which once occupied 1, Market Square.

This was one of no less than 473 branches of theirs throughout the UK, and they moved into the premises vacated by The Hope pub, having made big changes to the frontage. This had been a Fullers Brewery of Maidenhead pub. You have probably seen the picture top right before, but maybe not with a touch of colour added.

However Capital & Counties Ltd., founded in 1877, did not last long in town. In 1918 they were taken over by Lloyds Bank who already had a Marlow branch. Eventually this became the Trustee Savings Bank, with repositioned entrance. They shut their doors (I think) in the late 1990s and became Blaser Mills Solicitors who had amalgamated with Winters Taylors from Little Stone House. This (lower centre) photo is another new addition to my collection: in the same week as I found the C. & C. Bank (top left).

Many of the empty banking premises in town are having trouble finding new occupants. If you look across the street in the side-on view of the Trustee Savings Bank you will see the distinctive gabled building housing Gough Brothers Wine Merchants. Not really ideal premises for a bank, but some years on Lloyds moved in here, but they have been gone for a while now and nobody has yet taken possession of the rent book. 

A few readers might just about remember one of two High Street branches of Barksfields Grocers here, but I don't imagine there is anyone still around who will have memories of a time before them - the similarly named Brookfield Grocers. That is the last colour picture, with Wethereds beer advertised on the side gates. In the early 1900s not many grocery stores had a licence to sell alcohol.

On the subject of shop fronts and the final long picture, I am so pleased that the late photographer Joe Green's marvellous framed montage of High Street shops in the early 1960s now has a permanent home in the entrance to Marlow Library: for a long time I was unsure if it was still in existence. It is over six feet long. The Chequers pub and Hewetts are the only names still trading. Joe embarked on a similar colour project in the 1990s, not just both sides of the High Street but West Street and Spittal Street as well. Parked vehicles hamper most of his later montages and this would be even more problematic in the 2020s if someone else (not myself !) tried to produce something along the same lines.

Contact Michael at michael@jazzfans.co or 01628 486571.