Changes

[[File:189-2017-04.png|frame|2017]][[File:189-1995.jpg|frame|1995: Photographed by Martin Stott]] << &nbsp;[[187|187]] &nbsp;[[193|193]] &nbsp;>> == February 2020 ==

[[File:189-2017-04Heat.png|frame|2017]]African bar and restaurant

== 2015-present 2019 ==

This shop unit is currently was empty.

A branch of Natwest Bank used to occupy this address from 1939 until 2015, when it closed. The Oxford Mail reported that this was due to a significant fall in use. <ref>http_</ref> === 1948 === Jim Tallett has had a soft spot for the road ever since he took up his first post in 1949 at the then Westminster Bank at 189 Cowley Road://www "A late '30s building . . . still there but empty and in poor condition now. We shared the building with the Ministry of Food - - then dealing with ration books and so forth. On my first day, the bank manager took me on one side and said 'Now then Tallett - I hope you are going to prove more useful to us than your predecessor. He spent more time thinking about acting and the Playhouse than banking.'&nbsp;So I said cautiously 'May I ask his name, Sir?'&nbsp;Ron Barker, was his reply. Ronnie B was a couple of forms above me at the City of Oxford High School (now the History Fac) so I knew him well.oxfordmailAfter he said bye bye to banking he went on to much greater things as we know.coAnd so did I in a different way.uk/news/11658388But the ten years or so I spent in banking (from Cowley Road to High Street, then Bristol, Cambridge and all over the south) stood me in huge stead for my university post.Bank_to_close_branch_in_East_Oxford/<br/ref>"The manager was proud of the fact that his wife was a descendant of Anne Hathaway. He also spent quite a lot of time over the road, down some stairs in what was known as 'the Rat Hole' (was it The Ampney Cottage"??. If Head Office phoned I had frequently to go across the road and say that he was needed on the 'phone. That aside, he was a gentleman of the old school, as they say. He taught me a very great deal more than Banking!"