For a rainy day

Metro Bank was the first of the "challenger banks", aiming to "shake up" UK high street banking. It was the brainchold of a US billionaire and, at its launch in 2010, it was proclaimed to be the first new UK high street bank for over 100 years. Presumably they were looking back to the formation of Barclays by the consolidation of a collection of small, local banks in 1896 

This seems more than a little harsh on the National Girobank - established in the 1960s - which really did shake up the banking sector and force them to adopt a much more customer-centred business model. At one point in the late 1970s or early 1980s, the Girobank was accepting one pound in every three deposited in the banking system. Of course, this national asset was far to collectivist for the neo-liberal zealots post-1979, and Girobank was privatised, subsumed into the Alliance and Leicester building society and, it seems, forgotten

There is no doubt that Metro bank has shaken up some people. After an accounting scandal in 2019, falling foul of the banking regulators, suffering a catastrophic fall in its share price and having to beg its corporate investors for more capital, it announced large scale cuts in staff numbers late last year. Anyone unfortunate enough to buy, not just the hype, but shares in the bank itself at its launch, found themselves facing a 97% loss in value

The building opposite is one of the oldest in Solihull, built in 1571, restored in 1845 and again in 1924. The dates are recorded, along with initials (presumably of the person who led the work) on the plaques to the right of the round window. Despite its antiquity, I can find little about what has gone on there, except that it was "a house" and that the arch to its left was "a carriageway" - meaning here, of course, a route along which carriages were driven

The half-timbered, half brick building a little further away is even older, 1495. It is known as 'The Manor House', though no lord of the manor ever lived there. It was more properly known as Lime Tree House, and had nine limes planted outside it in 1720. It has served as a doctors' surgery; it narrowly avoided becoming a brewery just before WWII and then served as the local HQ of the Home Guard. Which tees up my current favourite joke:

St Peter, at the pearly gates: "What's your name?" 
From the throng behind the saint, the voice of Arthur Lowe: "Don't tell him, Pike" 

Some things are made to last