I was delighted to read Phoebe Merrick's article in your February 16 issue. 

For some years now, I had been puzzled by the "Bank" door in The Hundred, as shown in the main picture. All is now revealed!

As it happens, I worked in what was then Lloyds Bank in the Market Place, from 1960 to 1967, and I was therefore very intrigued by the 1858 view of that corner. It might amuse your readers to learn that my first manager, John Reeve, used to catch salmon or trout out of the gents' toilet window! 

This was slightly upstream from the tributary of the Test which flows round what was then the Abbey Congregational Church, now the United Reformed Church. It was also interesting to see, in another window in the toilet area, a frosted pane with "Capital & Counties Bank" etched on it. I wonder if it is still there - and if not, what became of it.

Mr Reeve occupied the flat above and behind the bank, and I was told that there was a full size snooker table immediately above the banking hall. In more recent times, I have been told that, being the size it was, it was impossible to get it out (without removing a window for the purpose), so my guess is that it is still there.

I see that there is a vertical sign in the main picture belonging, I assume, to Lowman's the Bakers.

They were still there when I worked at Lloyds. I understand that Old Man Lowman, when he finally took his horse-powered delivery wagons off the roads, used a couple of the cartwheels to form his front gate - this was on the right-hand side of the Botley Road going out of town, just before the Montfort College.

Mike Lund Yates,
Riverside Gardens, 
Romsey

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