The digital revolution of the last 20 years has impacted on nearly every aspect of our daily lives.
The rapid-fire growth of online banking, for example, has led to far fewer of us popping down to the local bank to draw out cash or pay in cheques as we might have done on a regular basis two or three decades ago. As a result of this major loss of footfall, many high street banks have pulled down the shutters for good in recent years.
The consumer group Which? last month reported that 5,355 UK bank and building society branches had closed since January 2015. Data from UK cash machine network, LINK, which tracks any planned branch closures across the the country, also recently reported there were around 266 more closures planned for this year.
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Many of the old bank premises have been repurposed. Take a stroll down Newcastle's Grey Street or along Collingwood Street, for example, and some of the fine old buildings that once played host to banks and insurance houses are now home to bars and restaurants. It's a trend that can be found in many UK towns and cities.
But one Newcastle branch which disappeared long before the arrival of the internet transformed banking was this one - the Midland bank on the corner of Mosley Street and the Cloth Market. Forty years ago, in February 1983, the Chronicle was reporting how the bank would close for business later that year
This particular outlet of the ‘Listening Bank’ cashed its last cheque in July 1983. The 13 employees were redeployed to other branches in the city, and the vaults of the bank were emptied of money for the first time in nearly a century.
Number 31, Mosley Street, had been a house of finance since 1906. It was constructed for the Scottish Provident Institution and the name is still inscribed high up on the granite and Portland Stone building. The Midland had occupied the premises for more than 50 years when branch manager John Sykes, 36, locked up for the last time.
The leisure boom of the late 20th-early 21st century would see the Grade II-listed building become a bar. For a while, Circus Circus traded there. Today, the old Midland building is home to the popular Flares venue.
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