
Dear Readers,
When I wrote to you last, we were standing at the top of Church Hill waiting to cross the road towards the Church and the Rectory so that we could visit the shops on that side of the High Street. I remember there was a little spring of water which ran permanently: where is it now, I wonder?
We didn’t have to wait to cross the road very long, fifty-something years ago, for there were few of the huge pantechnicons we have to dodge nowadays.

Turning along the road, towards the post office, there are three small cottages, a telephone box and a water pump, then we pass some waste ground and a private house. Then Lloyd’s Bank with a flat above.

Yet another large private house follows, with Gray’s butchers shop attached. The building is still owned by the Grays’ daughter but it is no longer a shop. Next there are two more stone buildings before the entrance to Gold Street at the bottom of which is a Renault car sale and repair garage.

Continuing along High Street, there is another quite large stone built house, three floors high, on the entrance to Gold Street, then a family-run men’s tailoring business (Mr Hobbs) with accommodation above, and joined to that another shop – now converted to housing – then a second butcher’s shop with an abattoir run by Mr Carter, then Vic Ford’s hairdresser’s and barber’s shop next to which is a shoe shop and chiropodist run by the Cheeseman family.


Then we have a VERY old house, Silk Hay, on the corner of the High Steet and Silk House Barton. Silk House Barton led to what had been a glove factory, and some derelict cottages. On the other corner of Silk House Barton is a house with a small shop in it which sells fishing tackle, and to this is joined another ironmonger-cum-antiques shop owned by the Prideaux family. Next comes the National Westminster Bank, then The Old Curiosity Shop and another little cottage, followed by the post office at the bottom of Barrow Hill.
We’ll stop there for now, but we still have to remind ourselves of what went on in Ring Street fifty-something years ago. See you there!