Goodbye HSBC

And now the HSBC has closed its doors for the last time, and the ATM has been boarded up. This leaves two ATMs in town, at the Nat West, just downhill from the main car park, and at Barclays, by the clock tower.
Rumours about what is going to happen to the building abound, from a Costa Coffee to a private house.
One fantasy suggestion at the last Stitch and Bitch meeting I was at was that it would make a brilliant library building - it even has disabled access in the form of a wheelchair lift at the front door, which was only recently installed.
That's not going to happen, of course.

I was told, though, the other day, that the design of the building may have been influenced by the famous architect Lutyens. Mark Westwood (who used to have the bookshop where the St Davids Hospice Shop has just closed), told me that he had been told this by Karl Showler, who used to be very good on Hay's local history. Apparently Lutyens worked as an architectural advisor for Midland Bank at the time that the Hay branch (originally a Midland) was built.