Inside Beckett’s Bank Wetherspoon Leeds

Every pub has a story to tell and here we explore the origins of the Beckett’s Bank Wetherspoon on Park Row in Leeds.

Transcript

00:00 The Beckett's Bank Weatherspoon pub on Park Row used to be a bank before becoming another

00:05 bank but it is in fact named after another bank which was controlled by Sir John Beckett

00:10 and stood further along Park Row at the corner of Bond Street. Once occupied by a wholesale

00:16 wool warehouse factory, it was replaced by Martin's Bank for 40 years and Barclays

00:21 for another 30 years or so before opening as Beckett's Bank in January 2001. Adam

00:28 Johnson and Kerry Page have been reflecting on their time there.

00:32 When I first started working for Weatherspoons I'd walked in here before I started working,

00:36 before I actually took the site on and I always thought to myself I'd like to run this and

00:42 that was when I was about 23, 24 years old. So when I got the opportunity, I was nearly

00:49 30 at the time, I was quite happy, I already knew the site, I'd already experienced sort

00:55 of coming in and drinking here. I think everybody does, everybody who comes into Leeds knows

01:00 this as the Weatherspoons because it kind of is. So when I took over I was quite proud

01:05 of what I've achieved first and foremost and then secondly scared to death of how busy

01:11 it was I suppose. There's still parts of the bank in the pub so we've still got the old

01:15 safe in the cellar, it's a 1900s building and it's absolutely gorgeous, you know, the

01:19 ceiling roses and all the decorative ceilings and stuff. So we've tried to keep as much

01:24 of that as possible over the years and not, you know, try to change the pub as such, just

01:29 try and keep it the same with the glass racks, where we've positioned the glass racks is

01:33 to give it so that it's still got a theatre behind it. They used to make clothes here

01:37 and sell them along in the market so that's part of the history. It is a wonderful building,

01:43 it's very big, obviously over two floors and there's a lot of the history in the sort of

01:49 the interior and on the design of the building that are still here so that's quite good.

01:55 It keeps history alive really. My favourite memory was the Rugby World Cup, my first ever

02:00 one and Scotland were playing England if I'm right, so the pub was really, really busy,

02:04 we obviously have it on the big screen and everyone was there. But there was a Scottish

02:08 man who came in and played bagpipes in the middle of the stairs and just in the middle

02:12 of the game at half time. Watching the fans and watching the staff and the fans and the

02:17 staff all celebrating together has been some of the best times I've ever had, certainly

02:22 in the working environment. I'm blessed in the way that I suppose I do a job where a

02:27 lot of the times I'm socialising and having a lot of the times a good time doing it and

02:33 I enjoy that element of my job. The customers are fantastic, we get a lot of regulars in

02:38 who always, you know, sometimes you're having quite a bad day and they'll come in and try

02:42 and cheer you up as much as they can and the building, you know, it's a lovely building

02:47 and we do get quite busy sometimes if people wanted to come in when it was a bit quieter

02:51 so they could have a wander round and obviously all the posters that we've got up on the walls

02:55 explain a lot about the history as they do in every Weatherspoons but it's always good

02:58 to know what the Weatherspoons used to be and every building has its own history doesn't

03:03 it?

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