The Old Bank

History

Opened October 2015

Building

Early 19th century, probably about 1837; Grade II listed 1949

Was

The Carlisle and Cumberland Bank, by 1839

Became a pub

October 2015, after years as the No. 34 restaurant

The name is literal. 34 Fisher Street was the Carlisle and Cumberland Bank, a joint-stock bank founded in 1836 or 1837 (the sources give both) at a time when Carlisle was said to be entirely destitute of a native joint stock bank. A local report has the bank here by 1839, and Asquith's survey of 1853 shows it on this site. Historic England suggest the company's founding may also date the building. Downstairs, the old vault and its safe door survive.

It is Grade II listed, from 1 June 1949: calciferous sandstone ashlar, rusticated on the ground floor, broad Ionic pilasters above, and a Greek Doric porch with a triglyph frieze round the door. The side wall on St Mary's Gate was hidden behind a neighbouring building until that street was cut through in 1925, and was refaced to match in 1989.

The bank itself was taken over by the Bank of Liverpool in 1911, which became Martins Bank in 1928, which Barclays absorbed in 1969. By then Martins' Carlisle branch was at 33 English Street, but it traced its line straight back to the 1836 company, so the building's usual billing as a Cumberland bank and later a Barclays holds up as a family tree, if not necessarily as a street address.

Before the pub there was a restaurant here, No. 34, run by James Hill for about nine years. Matt Rayson, then 26, bought it, gave it an eight-day refit and reopened it in October 2015 as the Old Bank City Pub and Chop House, with a pig in a top hat, a banker, for its logo. He still runs it, and Cumbria Guide named it Gastro Pub of the Year for 2025.

That gives Carlisle two pubs in old banks. The Griffin on Court Square was the Cumberland Union Banking Company of 1865-67, and became a big Greene King pub. This is the older of the two by about thirty years, and became a small independent kitchen. Same idea, very different results.

It leans into the banking past, with ghost-hunt nights where people ask after spirits from its days as a bank, which is at least an honest use of a building's history. The cooking is modern British with a meat-forward menu that changes monthly, and the kitchen stops well before the bar does: last food orders are 8.30pm, and 5.30pm on Sundays.