Records of the Barnstaple Building Society

This collection contains records of the Barnstaple Building Society. The collection includes the first two prospectuses; a set of annual reports from the 1850s to the 1960s; a few reports of society Annual General Meetings; two members combined deposit, investment and borrowing ledgers covering the period from 1851 to 1877; a single photograph of listing of Society presidents.

The majority of records are open for viewing. More modern records are subject to restrictions

The Society began life in Barnstaple in 1851 as the Barnstaple Permanent Mutual Benefit Building Society. It changed its name to the Barnstaple Building Society in 1948. This was a small local society with around 2000 members at its height. They briefly had a part time office in the Lynton Town Hall in the early 1900s. In 1964 it merged with the Western Counties Building Society to become the Western Counties and Barnstaple Building Society. This in turn became part of the Ramsbury Building Society which then became part of the Portman Building Society in 1990. In 2007, The Portman merged with Nationwide Building Society.