History of the shops: Headington’s five banks
Until 1925, there were no banks at Headington, and the relatively few people who then had a bank account would have had to go down to Oxford’s High Street. The big four banks arrived in Headington in the following order between 1925 and 1934, followed by the Trustee Savings Bank in about 1940.
Barclays Bank
From 1925 to 1927 Barclays Bank is listed in directories at 95 London Road (now the "Pen to Paper" shop). (No. 95 was until 1933 numbered 17)
By 1930 it had moved to its present large site at 105 London Road (originally numbered 27/29).
The manager from 1925 to 1947 was William Charles Hedges, and after moving to the new building he lived at the adjoining "Bank House".
The picture on the left shows the bank in the early 1940s.
Midland Bank (HSBC)
From 1930 to 1964 the Midland Bank is listed at 84 London Road (originally numbered 20). This building was the second house in from the north-east corner of New High Street, on the site of the present Feather & Black bed shop.
From 1966 the Midland is listed in its present building in Kennett House on the north-east corner of Kennett Road. In 1992 the Midland was taken over by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and in 1999 all Midland banks were renamed HSBC.
Lloyds Bank (Lloyds TSB)
From 1933 to the early 1980s, Lloyds Bank is listed at 85 London Road (originally numbered 113). This building was the second one in from the south-west corner of Stephen Road, on the left-hand part of the double plot that it occupies today.
In about 1983 the old Lloyds Bank building together with Shergold’s at 87 on the corner were demolished and replaced by the present larger building at 85–87 London Road.
Below: Old Lloyds Bank by Jill Slaymaker
Westminster Bank (NatWest)
From 1934, the Westminster Bank is listed at 91 London Road. This building was the second one in from the south-east corner of Stephen Road: on the corner at No. 89 was Burton’s Dairy.
In the 1980s the bank took over the shop next door, and now occupies the whole corner site at 89–91 London Road.
Below: Photograph by Jill Slaymaker showing the old Westminster Bank to the right of the dairy
Oxford Trustee Savings Bank
By 1943, the Oxford Trustee Savings Bank opened at 117 London Road (in what had previously been Headington Post Office and is now Annie Sloan’s paint shop). It remained in this building until 1962.
From 1964 to 1995 the Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) is listed next-door to Barclays at 103 London Road (now Ladbroke’s betting shop).
In 1995 Lloyds took over the TSB, and until it closed this shop in 2004, Headington had two branches of Lloyd’s Bank within a stone’s throw of each other.
Mrs Emily Elizabeth Coppock (nee Steers) who wrote the cheques shown on this page, married George Coppock at Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry on 3 June 1907, and they lived at 222 London Road in Headington. George was a bricklayer who later became a builder, and as some of the cheques drawn on Barclays Bank in Headington are made payable to the Inland Revenue, it seems likely that she looked after the bookkeeping side of the business. George died on 26 September 1949 and Emily Elizabeth over twenty years later on 19 April 1970.
Advertisement for the Trustee Savings Bank in The Windmill (the magazine of
Headington
County Primary School in Windmill Road), Summer 1953
