Three Rivers Museum Trust chairman Fabian Hiscock looks back at some of the shops and businesses associated with one Rickmansworth road.
I’ve been thinking about how places we know well actually change. Whether it’s the apparently unchanging sea cliffs, or great houses or castles, or the fields now being built on (as they have for at least 200 years, in fact) – everything changes.
We probably notice it most in our towns and villages. I was struck just over the weekend, when looking at a collection of old photos and postcards that we’ve just been left by our great friend and fine local historian, Adrienne Jacques, how much and how quickly our commercial scene changes. Take Rickmansworth’s Station Road, for example. I wonder how many readers remember it in (say) the 1960s? Some readers will have personal memories: others will be interested just to see the changes.
Museum member Barry Newton remembers it well.
Starting at the High Street end, you had Tesco, who came to Rickmansworth in 1937 as one of the first bulk food stores in the country (but not yet a ‘supermarket’ as we now know it, although Barry remembers it selling piles of cereal and washing powder – remember Omo and Daz)? Next door, Mr Price was a newsagent and stationer – he sold local papers from a great distance around here. Then came Arthur England, the confectioner and tobacconist. Ted Fuller had his bike shop – repairs, and also spare parts for those who did their own maintenance – and also sold electrical goods (including cable of various specifications on the reel) as well as small tools.
An alleyway led to a cottage behind the street front, then Mr Jobin sold and repaired watches, especially Swiss watches, then the byword for quality. Mr Chapman did shoe repairs – you’ll spot a theme of things being ‘repaired’ here, by professionals who did it properly. And Sumner, the chemist, was (since at least 1895) opposite what’s now the junction with Northway.
We have an album of their bottle and packet labels – remember ‘The Linctus’, ‘The Mixture’ and ‘The Tablets’? – as well as the pharmacist’s notebook with the ingredients for the various preparations.
Next door to that was Beazley the florist, with a stairway to the upper floor at the side, and the Co-Op butchers, with an archway leading to the back of the premises. Then, Metro Motors (Harry and Bob Barton, we believe) sold petrol and cars as well as having the usual workshops – which were, Barry remembers, on the first floor, with your car being taken up there by a lift. The Bartons still had a hay and straw business on the same site, which certainly dated from 1948.
The Watford Observer local office came next, producing Rickmansworth Observations – and then right next to the railway bridge was the coal office of Joseph Cade & Co, who had taken over the Walker Bros coal business in 1956 (it became a Charringtons site in 1968).
On the other side of the road, a couple of brick and flint built cottages were next to the Sportsman pub – a beer house only, once with a wonderful multi-sport sign and Mr Peter Thackham as the last landlord. In a pair of Victorian cottages with street-front extensions Alvin Ridgeway provided gents’ hairdressing, and Mr Restorler made-to-measure tailoring. Downhill from them was the gateway to the Artists’ Retreat home, which was (like so much else) to be demolished in 1964. The Tree Restaurant had a tree growing out of the wall next to it, which you can see it in all these images, and back on the corner was the large long-standing ladies’ and gents’ outfitters Ibbotsons.
Now, this is just a snapshot of our changing places. What a lot of business was squeezed into what’s not a very long street! Our friends in the Abbots Langley Local History Society are working on a much more in-depth review of their High Street, and there are plenty of other examples – in fact, every town or village street has gone through changes just like these.
We’d love to hear other stories of the changes people have seen and been through, perhaps even quite recently.
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