Bank's impressive site

This is the corner of Bryce and Victoria streets in May 1983. On the left, where the person is crossing, is Bryce St while Victoria Street runs across the foreground. The large building on the corner was the National Bank which was built in the early 1920s and opened by the bank’s general Manager, Mr. Alfred Jolly, on 26 September 1922. The Waikato Times, reporting the occasion of the informal opening, said the mayor, J R Fow commended highly ‘the enterprise and foresight of the directors of the National Bank in putting up such a permanent and magnificent building, which was a fine architectural edifice…’.

‘Permanent’ is a relative term. This building was demolished just over sixty years later. There is a small building next to the bank being demolished to make way for the modern and ‘permanent’ edifice which now occupies the entire site.

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