Banks in Hay

I mentioned recently that the building that houses our local Barclays Bank is up for sale. It occurred to me later that we actually have quite an odd set up for the bank here in Hay.
The bank itself is on the ground floor of the building, which is listed, like most buildings on Broad Street, and has a Victorian frontage on an earlier building. The bank shares its front door with the flat up above. That's not the oddity, though - the manager's office is technically next door! It opens off the main bank, but when you go outside and look, it's actually in a corner of South Bank House, next door. Now it's completely cut off from the house, but in 1926, the manager lived in South Bank House, so it must have been convenient for him to have his office in his own house (or the bank's house - they seem to have owned it at the time).

The Nat West also has a flat over the top of it, though they have a completely separate entrance. Legend has it that the house was originally bought by one of the Earls of Oxford, who had land locally. He fell in love with a woman he was unable to marry for some reason - and bought her house instead (or possibly bought the house for her - I'm suffering from inaccurate memory syndrome today, and can't get in touch with the person who would know just now).

The HSBC is built on the site of a pub called the Fountain Inn, which was demolished in 1870 and replaced by a bottling plant for soft drinks, run by Thomas Stokoe, the local chemist and vet (and grocer, and agent for a wine and spirit firm, and if all that wasn't enough he ran the Crown inn in Broad Street too!).