Memories of
Hullavington - Shops
By
Mary Greenman
When I first
moved into the village, there were four shops where groceries could be bought:
-
Mr and Mrs
Brock in the "bottom" shop I remember well, the long, dark-brown wooden
counter;
-
Mr and Mrs
Patman - a newly-opened shop in the garden buildings of "The Cottage", Frog
Lane;
-
At the
Post Office; Mrs Jefferies, 59/61 The Street. The selling of groceries at
the Post Office stopped, and during the '60:s until her death, Mrs Marjorie
Coram ran a very successful line in children's clothing. I bought a number
of children's outfits from her.
Mrs Jefferies' chop was the Aladdin's Cave of the village! It was amazing
what she was able to produce from a corner here, a drawer there, or an
overloaded shelf - bacon (hand-sliced, until the great day of the
bacon-slicing machine), buckets biscuits, brushes, pins, prunes, paint and
potatoes; sticky labels, sweets, wool, whistles and washing-powder - all
found a home. Hardware hung from the walls and ceiling, while the floor area
was greatly diminished by the stacks of tins and boxes. To tidy up would
have been criminal. It was an organised muddle!
-
The
original village garage was started by Alec Fry at 47, The Street. It
boasted one petrol-pump, a galvanized-iron tool-shed and garage that housed
Alec Fry's prize Mark V silver/blue Jaguar (which in 1960 was one of our
wedding cars). These sheds looked fragile enough, but were deceptively
strong, withstanding one close bomb-blast in the Second World War. It was
said locally that had the structure been rigid, it would have been brought
to the ground, but being more flexible or 'shakeable', it remained standing.
Debris from the blast filled the street nearby. Alec sold petrol, serviced
cars, repaired bicycles, and he was also the local cobbler. The building of
the present garage by Alec Fry's son-in-law, began in 1960. First of all,
the site had to be cleared, which involved the demolition of the cottage on
the corner of Frog Lane/The Street. Vin and his brother helped with the
demolition, and our wedding photos prove it. Thankfully, the knocks on the
head were not too disfiguring! At a later stage, when sold on to Mr Roy
Newport, the 'other half of the thatched cottage disappeared, along with the
Old Forge, and that beautiful old sycamore tree - very sad.
By 1958, Eton College were keen to sell all of their remaining property in the
village, with the exception of Jubilee Cottages. The sale of the five farms and
cottages, for valuation and land tax purposes, was one of the last projects that
I was involved in before our marriage in 1960. This was of particular interest
to me considering the fact that I was soon to marry a young man from
Hullavington!
Howard put in his appearance in 1961, in the front bedroom in the further wing
of Court Farm (Court House). On the regular afternoon stroll down the drive with
the pram, I would meet Mrs Reed and Mrs Nettles coming up to the dairy with
their milk-cans to collect the milk. 99 cows were being milked in the stalls
(some of them now a part of Belfry Drive development) - we never did discover
what happened to the 100th! In the drive, was the entrance to the old stables
and other sheds, now known as 'The Coach House'. It was here that in 1976 our
beloved family pet Shandy was born - a golden collie-cross. We had her for 15
years and what happiness she brought. The end of the this building by the poplar
tree, was my father-in-law's garage for many years. .....,-
<<<<<<<< Back to Memories Index |