Smith’s Bank

James White asked (Mar 3rd 2015) …

I’m fascinated by the old drawing of “Messrs Smith & Co’s new Bank Premises” that appears at the bottom of your page on the Baker household. The bank has been demolished but the adjoining shop (44 Bath Street) survives.
The bank is not on the OS 1880 map, but it is on the 1900 map. What was the source of the drawing? Do you have a date, an architect, a building contractor?

Dave replied (Mar 3rd 2015) …

The 1879/1880 map to which you refer shows Smith’s Bank as part of and fronting the Town Hall in Ilkeston Market Place.
Both Kelly’s Directory of 1881 and Wright’s Directory of 1883 refer to the bank of Samuel Smith & Co in the Market Place.
However the plans for the new bank were discussed by the Local Board in 1881 and approved by that body in August of that year. The minutes of the Local Board meetings are held in the archives at Erewash Musesum and so you should find reference to the building of the bank in them.
Certainly the premises were built by May of 1883… I have seen reference to the ‘Bath Street’ bank at that time.
The picture which appears on the Baker Family page of my site was taken from the Ilkeston Advertiser.
In December of 1881 that paper produced an ‘end-of-year’ supplement and the picture appeared there. Most likely it would have been taken from an architect’s plan.
The same paper mentions that the bank was to have a frontage of 76 feet and a depth of 50 feet, and a height of 38 feet to the ridge.
It was to include, as well as the bank, a manager’s house, a shop and a dwelling house.
The architect was to be Messrs Evans and Jolly of Nottingham. The plan was to have it opened by ‘early 1882′.. though I don’t know the builders at the moment. Perhaps they were local .. the Warners perhaps?
So the building of the bank would have been completed some time between January 1882 and May 1883. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise at the moment.
There will no doubt be reference to it in the local press — the Advertiser or the Pioneer — between those two date parameters.
I hope this helps.

James added (Mar 5th 2015) …

Thanks Dave.
I’ve done some research of my own. The shop was a furniture shop from at least 1954 (at which time a new shop front was proposed by Jays Furnishing Co). In 1970 A large two-storey extension was built by Great Universal Stores, trading as Cavendish Woodhouse. The present shop front was installed in 1992, at which time the shop was converted for use as an amusement arcade.
Smith’s Bank, later the National Westminster Bank, was demolished and replaced in 1974.