National & Provincial Building Society

National & Provincial Building Society

Company type	Building Society (Mutual)
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1982
Defunct	1996
Fate	Acquired by the Abbey National
Products	Savings, Mortgages

The National & Provincial Building Society was a mutual building society based in Bradford, England. It was established in 1982 by a merger between the Provincial Building Society and the Burnley Building Society. ^[1]

On 5 August 1996, Abbey National took over the National & Provincial. ^{[2] [3]}

Headquarters

Provincial House (far left) in 1971

National & Provincial had their headquarters at Provincial House, Bradford, which was designed by John Brunton, ^[4] and were inherited from the Provincial Building Society, who commenced construction in 1969. ^[5]

Provincial House continued to be occupied by Abbey National after the takeover but the, by then, 55,000 sq ft building was demolished in a controlled explosion on 1 September 2002. The explosion, carried out by Controlled Demolition used 1,500 detonating charges which totalled 90kg worth of explosives. ^[6]

References

1. "Past Building Societies". BuildingSociety.com. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
2. Simon Rex (11 January 2010). "List of demutualised building societies". Building Societies Association. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
3. "Further details about building societies' balance sheet (to December 2007) data". Bank of England. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
4. "150 years of BSAS - Board 3" (PDF). Bradford Society of Architects and Surveyors. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
5. Clayton, Emma (1 October 2022). "Love it or loathe it? Provincial House in Bradford city centre". Telegraph & Argus. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
6. Wainwright, Martin (2 September 2002). "Building society HQ succumbs". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2026.