Tag Archives: Shops

Palma Ault: Shops, Mills 1930s, 1940s

The main door to Mills, now bricked up, was in the High Street, with a little door on the corner which we use now as the main entrance. The Mills family lived in what is now ‘St James’, next to the Church – the rector lived opposite in what we know as the ‘Old Rectory’. The Mills family owned all of where St James Close is now and it was a market garden, with a tennis court for Nora Mills, daughter of the house.

The wine at Mills was kept in a dark place before you got to the bakehouse.

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Old entrance to Mills on High Street

Palma Ault nee Holloway b 1927

Shops: Mills and bakers, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

Mills had a very dark haired nice- looking boy who used to push the bread round daily on wooden trucks door to door. Also we had bread delivered from Whilliers at Newbridge.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

Athel Henderson worked in a bakehouse in Mills. They used to cook some bread there, when you come to think of it!  They had 2 vans on the road, one used to go out with the bread and one with the groceries. Brian Pomroy b 1937

I can remember sitting in our big old pram outside the bakehouse, waiting for my Dad ( Athel)  to finish his shift. Terry Henderson b 1947

Eileen Smith: Shops, Mills 1930s

Mills' staff c 1936

Mills’ staff c 1936

I started work in Mills two weeks after I left school. Mr. Mills himself taught me how to weigh out tea, sugar, raisins and currants, into paper bags, and then turn the top down. The weighing had to be done really accurately, with balance scales and weights, because you never knew when the Weights and Measures man would call in to check. Brown sugar was difficult because it used to dry out and the weight would change.

New Zealand butter came in large tins and had to be weighed out into blocks of 4oz. You had to be quick otherwise it went squidgy, ugh! We had marble counters to keep it cool.

Some customers would call in at quarter to eight, just before we shut, and want all their groceries delivered before we closed, even if they lived just opposite. Some of them had lists, others used to lean over the counter and whisper ‘2 oz of tea’ so no one knew they weren’t ordering much.

I learnt to drive the delivery van in 1940 – had to drive all round Cranmore Avenue and Hamstead. The first day I went out on my own, I had a puncture after I’d delivered up the lane at Lee Farm. By the time I’d changed the wheel, my hands were filthy and black, so I knocked on the door and asked Mrs. Stallard if I could wash my hands.
‘No you cant!’ she said, so I had to drive all the way back to Yarmouth to wash my hands.
 Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Shops: The Square, Mills, 1920s, 1930s

Mills, it was a lovely shop! Inside there were counters all round with marble tops. They used to grind their own coffee, and we children used to stand and sniff the smell….umm it was good.

There were wires around the shop with a bag that they used to put the chit in for what you had to pay. That ran to the glass cashier’s cubicle. Ruby Meaning nee Mussell b 1915

Shops: The Square, Mr. Burts, 1950s

Sometimes we used to collect our milk in jugs from Mr Burt who had a shop where ‘On The Rocks’ is. He ladled it out from the churn of milk. And he also did home deliveries in a cart. He sold home-made ice cream, a real treat.
Sue Russell nee Hayles b 1940

The Square, Burt's ice cream parlour and green grocers

The Square, Burt’s ice cream parlour and green grocers : Photo Pat Burt

In the summer you got your ice creams from Mr Burt on the corner, Pat’s father in law. They were lovely ice creams , strawberry, vanilla or chocolate, made in the back of the
shop.

His shop was called Shalfleet Manor Dairy because he collected the milk from Shalfleet Farm every morning and delivered it round Yarmouth from the churns into people’s jugs.    That must have been in the 30’s, up to the war, because then he was in the Navy, he was called up.
The bit at the back was the ice cream parlour in the summer, a greengrocer’s in the front. He used to grow a lot of vegetables. He had a piece of ground on the lane leading up to the recreation ground, on the left hand side, where there’s a bungalow now.  He grew vegetables, kept a few pigs and he bought a lot of veg. from Mrs Crozier’s estate at Westhill.  He used to go over there and buy it off the gardener because there was just the one big house there to supply, with gardens where there‘s bungalows now. Burt’s carried on into the 1950s when Mrs Burt was running it.
Pat Burt nee Adams and Annette Haynes nee Holloway b 1929

Mum used to bribe us by offering us an ice cream from Burts when she wanted us to leave the beach without making a fuss. M.S.

Jack Burt used to come round with the milk in churns. Ash from that damn pipe was always falling in it. Nick Chandler b 1937


Alec Cokes: Shops, The Square, Harwoods, 1960s,

Mr. Harwood outside Harwoods in the Square 1960s

Mr. Harwood outside Harwoods in the Square 1960s

John and I, we wanted twenty fathom of rope so we went to see Mr Harwood.
In those days you went through the same door as now, and the counter was on the left as you went in and Mr. Harwood was just looking through a gap, with stuff all round him, all hung up, pots and pans and whatever.
The well, that was in the back yard.  It’s inside now so that shows you how small the shop was. So we said, ‘Mr Harwood, can we have some rope?’
He said, ‘Yes, of course you can.  What do you want that for nipper?’
We said, for an anchor rope.  So he says, there’s the coil, take it outside. The pavement is all marked in fathoms, roll out what you like, cut it off and bring the bit back in.
So we said all right.  So we unrolled this coil, and of course he’s not looking out the door or anything, so we thought …. we’ll not stretch it too tight.
We coiled it all back up again and said, ‘There we are Mr Harwood, that reached almost to the public bar in the Bugle.’
He said, ‘ Oh, did it? That’s alright then’.
He said, ‘Give it here’, and we thought he was going to measure it, but he weighed it.
Alec Cokes b 1945

Ron Wallis: Shops, 1940s

Lower Hamstead was where I was born and brought up for the first six years.  Twice a week, two vans used to come through from Yarmouth – one was with the groceries from Harry Mills, the Grocers, and the other one was with paraffin and candles from Harwoods the ironmongers and hardware store.  The driver of Harwoods van, as far as I remember was a tall, slimmish man and a flat cap and brown smock, a man called Ted Elderfield. Ron Wallis b 1941

Eileen Smith, Blanche Kennard: Shops, The Square,Harwoods

Harwoods hardware shop in the Square – well it’s a wonder that when someone dropped a match the whole street didn’t go up, there was so much petrol everywhere. They had petrol pumps which swung across the pavement. The petrol at one time was brought across the Solent in barrels. Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

 

Shops: Square 1930s with Harwoods van

Shops: Square 1930s with Harwoods van

Old Mr. Harwood was so big he used to block the whole doorway of the shop. Blanche Kennard nee Dore b 1923    

Ruby Meaning nee Mussell: Shops, Mills Tea Rooms

On the corner in the Square was Mills Tea Rooms ( now ‘Blue’) where you could see all the lovely cakes and buns they baked. We used to press our nose against the glass to see which ones we’d choose. My favourite was the one with coconut on it. Ruby Meaning nee Mussel b 1915

Palma Ault: Shops, The Square

Mills Tea rooms, corner of the Square and Quay Street.

Mills Tea rooms, corner of the Square and Quay Street.

When I worked in Mills Café we used to have to go across the Square with a big urn,  – it took 2 of us to carry it –  fill it up with boiling water in Mills Bakehouse, carry it back across the Square to the café and put it on the gas stove.  We used to do this 2 or 3 times a day depending on how busy we were. The tea was 1d a mug.  The cake shop was downstairs and tearoom upstairs.   Palma Ault nee Holloway b1927