Cheltenham & Gloucester's 164 branches will be closed, ending 159 years on the High Street.

Another 1,660 jobs will be lost, the bank added, bringing the total redundancies since its merger with HBOS to roughly 4,600.

Lloyds' decision to draw a curtain on C&G's 159-year high street history follows similar moves by Spanish banking giant Santander, which is bringing its UK subsidiaries Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley under the global brand. It also comes after a decade in which the number of bank and building society branches in the UK has fallen from 15,536 to just 12,409, according to the British Bankers' Association.

The plans formed part of Lloyds' ongoing overhaul of its retail bank, which accounts for a third of the UK mortgage market.

Daily Telegraph