The English, Scottish & Australian Bank, now the Fair Trade Shop

Banking on Uki's Future

This site was initially used by Mr. Groves, a blacksmith. In 1910, David Cleaton Marshall constructed this building and leased it to the E.S. & A. Bank, which opened that same year. The building included stables at the back.

During the devastating 1914 fire, local farmer Gerald Parker sat overnight in front of the safe with a loaded double-barrelled shotgun until bank representatives from Murwillumbah could arrive to empty it. By all accounts, the contents survived intact!

The original timber building was rebuilt around the original vault and fireplaces using expensive fibro imported from France by James Hardie Pty Ltd (fibro wasn't manufactured in Australia until 1917).

During the influenza outbreak of 1919, the Uki School served as a hospital, and the kitchen of the bank residence was used to prepare food for patients.

From Bank to Banana Ripening

The bank agency finally closed on July 30th, 1955. From 1960 to 1961, the bank area served as a meeting place for the Buffalo Lodge for £1 per meeting until local church dignitaries intervened to stop the activities.

In 1967, the Connolly family purchased the entire building. The front bank section was later used by Lloyd Roberts (a Connolly relative) as a banana ripening room, banana case manufacturing site, and packing shed. In 1991, two barrel loads of carbide (used to ripen bananas) were removed from the old safe!

The old bank was restored and heritage-listed in 1992, preserving features like the repolished yellow teak floor, the unique key for the historic Chubb safe, and a "scrubbed up" old stove from the 1800s. The colours used match the original structure, and testing revealed the old linoleum dated from around the turn of the twentieth century and had been imported from Scotland.