IT has the legend 'Old Bank' immortalised in stone over its door but have you ever wondered about the history of the building where NatWest now resides in Abergavenny. Let's have a look...

The history of the branch can be traced back to 1837 it was founded by the private bank of Baileys and Co (also known as the Monmouthshire Agricultural and Commercial Bank). The partners in Baileys & Co were Sir Joseph Bailey, Crawshay Bailey, William Morgan, Sir Thomas Greatorex and William Williams.

The Bailey family were landed industrialists who owned collieries and the huge Nantyglo and Beaufort ironworks.

At that time Abergavenny was a busy market town with a population of over 4,200. The old trades of flannel and periwig making were in decline, but there were ironworks in the district and a buoyant retail trade.

The Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal also brought much business to Abergavenny.

As a result the partnership felt it was the ideal location to open their first bank and the branch was opened in the High Street.

Abergavenny’s new bank flourished and as a result a branch was quickly opened in Monmouth too.

By the late 1860s Crawshay Bailey, MP, the bank’s ageing senior partner, was keen to cut back his business commitments. In January 1868 he sold the bank and its branches to the large, London-based National Provincial Bank of England for £20,000. Press reports at the time described Crawshay Bailey & Co as ‘an establishment which is well known in the district and which is in every way eminently entitled to the public confidence which it enjoys’.

After the merger, Bailey and his fellow partner Thomas Greatorex became local directors of the acquiring bank and National Provincial Bank’s own branch in Cross Street, which had opened in 1851, was combined with the business of Crawshay Bailey & Co in the latter’s remodelled High Street premises, known as Old Bank House.

Despite competition from other banks in the town, business at the enlarged branch flourished.

In 1918 National Provincial Bank of England merged with Union of London & Smiths Bank to become National Provincial & Union Bank of England. This name was shortened in 1924 to National Provincial Bank. In 1968 Westminster Bank and National Provincial Bank, along with National Provincial's subsidiary District Bank, announced their intention to merge.

The operations of all three banks were combined over the following 18 months and they began to trade as National Westminster Bank from January 1970.

In 1977 Abergavenny branch moved to temporary premises in Cross Street, whilst its historic Grade II listed building at 9-10 High Street, was entirely refurbished. The works carefully preserved the original 17th and 18th century buildings, and the neo-classical early Victorian façade.

An old iron vault door and two panelled doors, found at the time of the renovations, were transferred to Abergavenny Museum. The branch moved back into the modernised High Street premises in June 1980, where customers enjoyed a more spacious banking hall and interview room and a new car park.