The Square Theme Park
PRESCOTTS Bank in Cornhill was an 18th-century City survival. The Prescotts were long gone (to Hull?) and their bank was a branch of the National Westminster, but it kept its decorous hall, its mahogany pillars and counters, its coffered ceiling, its handsome glass dome . . . It looked quite like a pub, in fact, and now it is one, thanks to Fullers the brewers, who have reopened it in fine style as the Counting House. So the City moves on to its new life as a theme park. NatWest, with a plethora of marble halls, has turned one into a picture gallery and another can be hired for suitably grand parties, while its tower, with its new portico of steel and glass, will soon have a café and is now collecting tenants who like their rooms to have views. How long before the Old Broad Street branch, which has its own swimming-pool, becomes a health club? Now the Prudential has nerved itself to move out of its massive Victorian pile. Across Holborn the Pearl's palace stands empty and the Pru's estate agents will have to use their ingenuity. C'est magnifique mais ce n 'est pas la gare. Perhaps it could be the City's only country-house hotel.
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