Various 1960's Snaps.

Hyde Park flower beds circa 1966. Look how beautiful the flower displays were !
Note Hyde Town Hall and St Georges Church in the background.


Whit Walk Band circa 1968


Whit Walk. Market Street Parade circa 1968
Williams Deacon's Bank  and Greenwoods Menswear in the background .
Sadly Greenwoods is no longer open and the bank is now the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Williams Deacon's Bank is now part of the Royal bank of Scotland.It was acquired in 1930 and had a large network of branches in the north-west of England. In 1970 it was integrated with Glyn,Mills and Co.and the The National Bank (which were part of the same group) to form Williams and Glyn's Bank

 William Deacon's Bank

 Greenwoods Menswear Ltd is a clothing retailer with a strong reputation for customer service and celebrated its 150th anniversary last year. The Company which has its Head Office in Bradford West Yorkshire, opened its first shop in 1860 in Bradford City Centre selling hats to the wool Barons of Yorkshire.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Martins Bank, Hyde

Martins Bank Limited was a Liverpool-based British financial services company that was taken over by Barclays Bank in 1969. The company has its origins in the 16th century and was said to have been founded by Sir Thomas Gresham , who began trading in Lombard Street under the sign of a grasshopper. After the Second World War it was the first bank to enter into partnership with a major retailer, opening banking concessions inside branches of the Lewis's department store chain.

Image © Barclays Ref 30/1399 Courtesy Martins Bank Archive.

Martins Bank Hyde Branch  which was situated on Market Street.

The bank was bought by Barclays Bank in 1969, when all of its seven hundred branches became branches of Barclays. Around 30 branches closed immediately, and ten were downgraded to sub-branches. Some, such as the sub-branch at Eaton, Norwich, Norfolk were brand new and handed over to Barclays on the day appointed by Act of Parliament for the merger of the two banks, 15 December 1969. The Martins grasshopper logo was retained for part of the combined business until the early 1980s, with "Martins Branch" and a small grasshopper appearing first on both statements and cheque books, later cheques only (see the Martins Bank Archive Project link below). Martins numbered among its customers a football pools company, a major airline and a world renowned shipping line. When these customers wanted to borrow large sums, Martins was known to have borrowed from other banks on a number of occasions to fulfil these requests. Even so, many who worked for the bank believed that Martins could have survived on its own, as at the time of takeover it was expanding its UK banking operation, and continuing a run of "firsts" which included:

• First in the north of England with a cash machine in 1967
• First with mobile banks to provide banking to remote areas
• First with a drive-through bank in Leicester in 1959 and Epsom in 1966
• First and only English bank to have a head office outside London
• First to recognise and embrace the swinging 60s in its advertising
• First to experiment with and then use a computer to operate current-account business
• First with a branch on the centre court at Wimbledon

Women were contractually obliged to leave the bank upon marriage, and as late as 1965, men were not allowed to get married until their salary reached a prescribed level. Many of Martins' forms, and some procedures, were retained or later adopted by Barclays as being more advanced than their own.

Thanks to Wikipedia

Barclays Bank as it is today.

Thanks to Google maps.