A hundred years ago this bank (at 11 Market Place) would have had the Corn Exchange as a near neighbour to the right, and above the doorway, the word BANK was engraved in stone. The building is still a bank but it has no Corn Exchange and has probably undergone a number of changes as little banks became bigger banks. There was once an Abingdon Bank which issued its own notes.

This building now stands tall as the NatWest bank. The Natwest came into being in 1968 when the National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank merged. The NatWest has since been taken over, in 1999, by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

On Sunday morning when not many people were about, a crane was lowering some building supplies onto the roof. It is yet another building with scaffolding and work being done.

Currently you’ll see taxis trying to park in front of the NatWest in the early evening, and people stop on the corner to nip out and use one of the two cash machines. That corner can become quite a squeeze.

With the crane it was impassable.