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Wor Woolies

Around Heaton’s Shops – with a Camera (Part One)

Eric Dale was born in 1937 and in about 1939 moved with his family from Corbridge Street, Byker to Eighth Avenue in Heaton. Like many of us, he clearly remembers many of the shops of his boyhood but, even better, from our point of view, he returned with his camera in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Here he takes us on a walking tour of some of the highlights, from the Avenues where he grew up and along Chillingham Road and back, where he was sent on errands every Friday. Inserted are photographs he took years later, alongside some taken this week.

The Avenues

On Second Avenue from Meldon Terrace going south: east side, on corner of Tenth Avenue I remember a small sweet shop and penny lending library at the no 1 bus stop. Opposite on Meldon corner was Thompson’s Red Stamp Stores. (Ed: This was a chain of grocery stores, which started in Blyth and spread throughout the north east.)

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Thompon’s Red Stamp Store, by 1994 a second hand furniture shop (Copyright: Eric Dale)

Corner of Second and Meldon, 2017 – now a lettings agent (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Next, a shop which recharged the glass-encased wet acid batteries (accumulators) which powered the household radio/wireless on the basis of take a spent one to the shop, pay your sixpence and get a freshly charged one in return. There was a chip-shop on King John Street corner. Opposite corner had a general dealer. (Ed: this corner is now residential properties.)

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Corner of Second Avenue and King John Street, 1994 (Copyright: Eric Dale)

On the corner of Balmoral Terrace and Second Avenue corner was an off-licence. If it still exists it must be the longest established retail outlet in Heaton. I lived in Eighth Avenue from the early 40s and remember as a very small child seeing deliveries being made to it by a steam-driven lorry or dray.

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Balmoral Wines, 1994 ( copyright Eric Dale)

(Ed: Well, yes, it does still exist! We’ll have to delve more into its history and see whether it rivals Clough’s for that title.)

Balmoral Wines, still going strong, 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Finally, on Second Avenue between First and Third, there was John Cook, gents’ hairdresser – and part-time bookies’ runner!

Chillingham Road

On west side of Chillingham Road going north was the Chillingham Hotel, then on the corner of Seventh a newsagent.

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Newsagent on the corner of Chillingham Road and Seventh Avenue in 1994 (Copyright: Eric Dale, 1994)

(Ed: This may have changed hands a few times but it’s still a newsagent’s)

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Newsagent on the corner of Chilli and Seventh, 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

On the opposite corner was Miss Welch’s, which sold sweets. Higher up Seventh on south side, McGee’s Bakery.

McGee’s bakery, empty by 1984 (Copyright: Eric Dale)

(Ed: Again, like many of the former shops in the Avenues, it’s been converted into a residential property.)

Back to Chillingham Road: Harrison’s Bakery (‘Harrison’s Pies are full of flies, it’s a puzzle to find the meat!’) was where mam always specified a ‘high-baked’ wholemeal small loaf which cost sixpence farthing. Wedgewood’s general dealers was on Eighth corner.

On the opposite corner was the Grace Fairless second-hand shop, where on rainy days I used to swap comics such as the ‘Beano’, ‘Dandy’, ‘Knockout’ and ‘Film Fun’ for older editions that I’d take along. As I grew older myself the favourites became the boys’ story papers ‘The Adventure’, ‘Hotspur’, ‘Wizard’ and ‘Rover‘; featuring ‘The Tough of the Track’ and ‘Smith of the Lower Third’).

Elliot’s general dealers (a small refund when returning pop bottles) was next in the row, later taken on by John and Mary from Chester-le-Street, then came Laidler’s fish and chips (‘a fish and threepen’orth’ was the usual order, but when new potatoes were in season chips went up to fourpence) and thenTurnbull’s newsagents.

Still on west side of Chillingham Road, after the school and on Meldon Terrace corner Fong Wah Laundry, then The Pie Shop (without doubt the least savoury chips in Heaton: greasy, limp and soggy), The Clock and Model Shop, Dennison and Graham chemist, the garage and filling station. (Ed:Note the 1984 prices in the photo. If our maths can be trusted that’s £1.85 for 4.55 litres or 40.66p a litre. About £1.15 today? But maybe that’s not too bad compared with the rise in cost of, say, going to St James’ Park?)

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Chillingham Road filling station, 1984 (Copyright: Eric Dale)

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The old Chillingham Road filling station site, about to be redeveloped, 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Grosvenor Ballroom, The Scala Cinema, The Co-op, a newsagent and Post Office on the corner of Cartington Terrace. Finally Riddells Photography, another very long-established business.

On east side from the south: on Spencer Street corner L.C. Garage, then Oakley fireplaces/plumbers.

Oakley’s the plumber, 1994 (Copyright: Eric Dale)

Oakley’s the plumbers boarded up for many years, 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Hedley’s the greengrocer was on the corner of Rothbury Terrace (there was a sloping wooden ramp down into the shop) and then Trutime Watch Co, which many older residents will remember well.

The Trutime Watch Co, 1984 (Copyright: Eric Dale)

Trutime Watch Co ( the fascia uncovered a couple of years ago) to let, 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

Nearby was London and Newcastle Tea Company and, just before Watson’s Paint and Wallpaper, Clough’s sweet shop. Yes, younger readers might not know there used to be more than one Clough’s – they must have bulk bought all the blue paint in Heaton!

Clough’s Chillingham Road shop’s golden anniversary, 1984 (copyright: Eric Dale)

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Formerly Clough’s Chilli Road, Bijou Hairdressing in 2017 (Copyright: Chris Jackson)

My Weekly Shop at the Co-op

Each Friday tea-time it was my job to walk along to the Co-op on Chillingham Road with my little shopping list and bring back the bacon (literally). Shopping there was a nightmare as each product was allocated a different counter. Sugar had to be weighed up and neatly packed in blue bags, lumps of the desired weight were hacked from barrel-shaped slabs of butter, cheese was similarly cut from large rounds and bacon thinly sliced on a hand-operated machine. Nothing perishable was pre-wrapped. And there was the additional tedium waiting whilst the relevant coupons were clipped from ration books. Jam, when it was available (and during the war it was always Damson) at least came in jars! Because there was no queueing system in place it was a struggle to maintain position in the mass of adult customers clamouring to be served….and I was only a kid less than half their size. I hated it, and it’s no surprise that I can remember our Co-op dividend number to this day. Just for reference, ration allocations per person per week in 1945 were 2 ounces butter and cheese, 4 ounces bacon and margarine, 8 ounces sugar. All rationing ended in 1954.

Acknowledgements

A big thank you to Eric Dale for his photos and memories. We’ll be featuring more in the near future.

Can you help?

We hope that you will add to what we know about the shops on Chillingham Road and in the Avenues. Either post your comments direct to this site by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org. It would be fantastic to find some more old photos.

Or if you are able to volunteer to take photos in Heaton today, again please get in touch. Think how interesting they will be in a few years time.

Shopping on Chillingham Road

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A Heaton exile, Mrs Fletcher, has written to us with her memories of Chillingham Road. We hope that they and the photographs from an even earlier time will prompt other readers to add some of their own:

‘I grew up and lived in Heaton in a typical Tyneside flat from 1940-64. As a child living in Warton Terrace,

Warton Terrace (Edwardian postcard)

I was only a ‘hop skip and a jump’ from Chillingham Road and I enjoyed shopping there with my mam or ‘going for messages’ for her. In those days ‘Chilly Road’ looked rather different – there were no trees, handy seats, estate agents, charity shops or supermarkets and a takeaway to us was fish and chips (taking newspaper for outer wrapping). There weren’t many cars but there were trams (later replaced by buses).

Chillingham Road (Edwardian postcard )

There was however a wide variety of shops. Some that come to mind are – Burrel’s butchers where we bought such things as black pudding and ‘scrag end’… Pinder’s greengrocers for ‘half a stone of potatoes’… Nesbit’s bakers for an ‘Edinburgh brown’ loaf… Sayer’s greengrocers where Mam first bought frozen food – a carton of bilberries. She’d have used them fairly quickly as we never had a fridge! There was Law’s stores for groceries, Little’s Dairy, which sold wonderful ice-cream and Donkin’s toyshop which also had a lending library. Nearby was a drapers.

Chillingham Road (Edwardian postcard)

Then there were several Co-op shops, Fong Wah’s laundry, a radio shop, Manners pork shop, two drycleaners, an off-licence, chemists, a wallpaper shop, fresh fish shop and many others.

At the post office I bought sheets of colourful pictures called ‘scraps’ to stick into my scrapbook. Next to the pillar box outside was a useful stamp machine. There was a newsagent who would deliver my ‘Beano’ and ‘Dandy‘ comics and later ‘School Friend’.

At the tiny branch of Clough’s we used to buy our sweets, like my favourite sherbet lollies, on the way to enjoy ‘the pictures’ along the road at the Scala.

Scala, Chillingham Road c1936

I also remember the ‘Tru-time Watch Company’ where I bought a necklace in the 1950s (I still have it). Happy days…’

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher, for taking the time to write and share your memories and also to Hilary Bray (nee Bates) who gave us permission to digitise and use photographs of Heaton from her collection.

Can you help?

If you have memories of shopping on Chillingham Road or you or a member of your family kept a shop there or you can tell us more about the places depicted in the photographs, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Heaton Road Shops: then and now

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Our full-colour 32 page book takes you on a walk up Heaton Road, showing you what some of the shops used to look like, telling you a little bit about their fascinating history and introducing you to current proprietors.

Heaton Road Shops Then and Now cover

We’ve trawled archives, corresponded with descendants, collected memories and, just as importantly, interviewed today’s shopkeepers so that they too will be remembered by future generations.

Sample spread from ‘Heaton Road Shops: then and now’

You might know that Ricky, who runs Heaton Village Store, is from Malaysia but bet you weren’t aware that one of his predecessors was born in Newfoundland and another, born in Madras, described himself in the 1911 census as a ‘swimming teacher and tea dealer’?

Another spread: Wild Trapeze and the original Co-op

Some Heaton History Group members remember the old Co-op well:

‘My sister remembers the smell of coffee in the provisions department and I can remember the big tubs of butter on the other counter…’ Keith Fisher

but how many of us have talked to Anthony and Alan Blevins of Wild Trapeze about their music and art?

Limited edition

We only have 100 copies, priced £5.00 (plus p & p) at Heaton History Group’s talks from Wednesday 23 September or by contacting chris.Jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org.

Photos, information or memories of Heaton to share?

We’d love to hear from you. Either message us from the link underneath the title of this article or email chris.Jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Castles of Heaton

Chilli Chimps

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The site now occupied by Tesco on the corner of Chillingham Road and Tosson Terrace was once, as many readers will know, a cinema. Sadly, the Scala (always pronounced, as was stressed at a recent Heaton History Group talk, Scay-la) became a victim of the growing popularity of television, closing its doors for the last time over 50 years ago on 1 July 1961. The photograph below appears in ‘Cinemas of Newcastle’ by Frank Manders (Tyne Bridge Publishing, 2005):

Former Heaton resident, ‘RS’ has only vague memories of it:

Being only six when The Scala closed, I would have been too young to have been allowed to go there on my own, but there is a vague memory of having visited there once, with a friend and his older sister. Certainly however, even at that young age, I was entrusted to make my own way to and from Ravenswood Primary School, and the most direct route by which to do so would have taken me past The Scala twice a day. To sum up: I may have visited it once, and must have seen it on many occasions, yet my memories of the building are faint.

However, he has much clearer memories of what came next. The world of retailing was changing and the old Scala was eventually demolished to make way for what RS believes to have been Chillingham Road’s – and, possibly, Heaton’s – first supermarket, a ‘Fine Fare’.

The writer was there, standing on the pavement with many others – trust me, it was a big deal at the time, and there was quite a crowd – at its grand opening.

I recall a bright but chilly Saturday morning and, if so, a best guess would be for sometime in the spring of 1965, when I would have been nine or ten. Predictably enough, there was a ribbon to be cut, and men in suits officiating, likely to have been a director of Fine Fare and a perhaps a local councillor. And there was a show business presence as well. On that Chillingham Road pavement, outside the Fine Fare, was a female celebrity, who I believe may have been a pop singer of the time. Now we’re not talking someone with the profile of Cilla, Dusty or Lulu here, but there was definitely someone from showbiz. I recall her having dark hair, and am tempted to have a guess at her identity … but no, that’s all it would be – a guess.

Star attractions

But there’s more – the main attraction, in fact. On that pavement, right in front of the shop entrance, there was placed at least one trestle table – maybe more – where the star guests performed their familiar routine, well known to ITV viewers since 1956. Yes, two or three of the Brooke Bond PG Tips chimpanzees had been brought along and – suitably and safely harnessed – were put through a traditional ‘chimps’ tea party’ act, for the benefit and amusement of the assembled crowd. At least we were all led to believe they were the genuine Brooke Bond TV chimps, hitherto only ever seen in black and white: it didn’t seem to be in the spirit of the occasion to ask for proof of their identities, and they may have been random, Geordie-based chimps for all anyone could tell. But on reflection – probably not. The demanding of autographs was also judged to be an unrealistic option. And then it was all over – no doubt much to the chagrin of the various grocers, butchers, bakers etc. of that stretch of Chillingham Road, now faced with the arrival of a new form of retailing which would do their own businesses no favours at all.

I shopped at the Fine Fare from time to time myself, and actually ended up working there, after school on two evenings a week and on Saturdays, in the early ’70s, when in my mid-teens, tasked with filling the freezer cabinets, but unfortunately without the benefit of an incipient frostbite allowance.

No longer resident in Heaton, I still occasionally drive past the premises noting occasional changes in ownership and name. And, after a gap of probably over four decades, one afternoon in the summer of 2013, I finally ventured back inside. On leaving the old, former Fine Fare, I lingered on the pavement outside for a few seconds, and those memories of nearly half a century ago returned – the memories which you have just read. Just a Tesco Express. Who would give it a second glance or thought today? But once it mattered. Maybe only for that single Saturday morning, so long ago. But, in the history of Heaton, once it mattered.

Seventies

The photograph below was taken outside Fine Fare in 1974, on what appears, at first sight, to have been a somewhat less memorable moment in the history of Heaton.

Fine Fare

We have Hungarian Laszlo Torday to thank for capturing just an ordinary moment some 40 years ago. Torday was a chemical engineer and amateur photographer who took hundreds of similar everyday scenes around Newcastle – and especially around Heaton because he lived on Jesmond Park West. The writer, Paul Torday, best known for his novel, ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ was Laszlo’s son. Newcastle City Library bought Torday’s photograph albums when they came up at auction some years ago and has given us permission to reproduce this one here. See more Torday photographs here.

Can you help?

Do you have memories of The Scala, Fine Fare or its successors to share? Do you remember who the celebrity was? Maybe you took a photo of the chimps? Or remember other early supermarkets in Heaton? Or perhaps you recognise someone in Torday’s photo? Post a comment by clicking on the link below the article title or email chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

Thank you to ‘RS’ from whose longer essay, these memories have been taken.

Shopping on Heaton Road: a century of social change

188 Heaton Road

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The latest ‘ghost’ sign to appear on Heaton Road is at number 188. Developers renovating the former Index stationer’s have uncovered a sign, saying ‘M A Lawson’. So who was Mr or Mrs Lawson? When did he or she run the business? And what sort of shop was it?

The block between King John Street and King John Terrace, which includes 188, was built around 1900 and the first occupant listed in the trade directories was Mrs Margaret Snowdon. The 1901 census tells us that she was a 52 year old widow, originally from Humshaugh in Northumberland. She had 4 children and her sister living with her and was running a boarding house at home. Also listed in the census at the address were William and Mary Williamson and Walter and Amelia Webb, described as having two rooms each. Walter and William were both engineers from outside the North East, perhaps working temporarily in the area. In the trade directories, Margaret is listed as the occupant until around the end of the first decade of the twentieth century but by the time of 1911 census, she and her family were living just around the corner at 6 Mundella Terrace. Her now grown up children were all working – an assistant school mistress with Durham County Council, a bank clerk, a water company clerk and, fittingly as we’ll see later, a typist for a civil engineering firm.

Duns roaming

It wasn’t until 1910 that a retail business seems to have opened at 188. The proprietor was John Duns, a fruit merchant who had been born in Wooler in about 1856. The 1911 census was conducted on 2nd April and on that date he was living above the shop with his wife, Ann, and seven children. However, very shortly afterwards, the family was to set sail for Canada on board SS Southwark. They arrived on 4 May. John was never to return. He died in Vancouver in 1929.

Enduring

By the beginning of World War 1, Margaret Anne (or Annie) Lawson was running the shop, still as a fruiterer’s, a business which remarkably was to last until the late 1950s, not far off 50 years. Almost as remarkably, its signage lives on!

In the late fifties her son, Robson Moffitt Lawson, is listed as the proprietor but he must have taken over well before that as Margaret would have been almost 100 by then had she lived.

Margaret was born around 1861 in Wallsend. On 2 April 1911, when the Dun family were at 188, Margaret, described as a widow, was living at 2 Seventh Avenue with four grown up children and an aunt. Two of her children (Joseph and Elizabeth) had gone into teaching, while John and Robson were described as shop assistants.

Margaret had been married to Robert, a draper’s assistant from Blaydon, but we haven’t been able to find out when he died or whether they ran a shop together before he did. Perhaps you can help? However, our research into the shops of Heaton has shown that shop-keeping was seen as a suitable and respectable way for a widow to earn a living. Keeping a boarding house is, as we have already seen, the other occupation that crops up regularly in this context.

True to type

It wasn’t until the early 1960s that the business saw another change of use. It became a typewriter dealer’s.

The earliest patent for a machine which seems to have been similar to a typewriter was obtained in Britain in 1714 but it wasn’t until 1873 that the term ‘type-writer’ was first used when Remingon in New York started to manufacture the first machine with a QWERTY keyboard. By 1910 design had become standardised and the proto-type electric typewriters were beginning to appear too.

In 1919, a business selling and servicing typewriters and other office equipment was established by Paul Bertram Nichols in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. Its customers were mainly government departments, councils and a number of large companies.

Paul had been born in 1888 in Gateshead, one of at least ten children of Susanna and Charles and Susanna Nichols (who was from Portland in Dorset). When the lower part of Pilgrim Street was due for demolition around 1960, he decided to relocate the business to Heaton.

Ronald Jenkins and his wife had worked for the company since its Pilgrim Street days and in 1969 took over the business, setting up the limited company P B Nichols (Newcastle) Ltd. Their son, Grahame, has provided us a great deal of interesting information about the firm and the premises:

On arrival at Heaton Rd the shop was vacant but it was believed to have been a greengrocer’s beforehand: Mam remembers being on her knees scrubbing the floors and having to contend with a lot of soil residue – left over from the produce.

The ‘front shop’ was always more of a ‘attractively laid-out’ stockroom than a thriving retail shop per se. The stock items were mostly to service their commercial customers but maybe a couple of dozen locals or passers-by would call in on an average week and made a small supplement to revenues. In the late 80s, as photocopiers became more modern/accessible they offered phtoocopying services. The rear of the building was used for stock, machine storage and some mechanical work on the typewriters. First floor was toilets, a ‘tank room’ for cleaning stripped typewriters in a carbon tetrachloride spray booth (Health and Safety!), the main workshop, and dad’s office – which was rarely used as such but doubled as a showroom for the more executive end furniture. The attics were used for storage (chairs, filing cabinets, company records). The cellar was used for storing desking.

… Anything German was regarded with what we would now consider to be undeserved animosity. However, being a true mechanically-minded man, my father had always appreciated Adler typewriters for their engineering excellence. He was therefore instrumental in introducing them to the north east and became Adler’s main dealership in Newcastle from as soon as (probably!) you could get away with it and not have a brick thrown through your window! He continued to sell them throughout his tenure.

…Sometime in the ’80’s, fierce winds brought down the top section of the chimneys and they fell onto the path on Heaton Rd. Fortunately this was early morning and no one was hurt. You will see that the stack was reduced and there are now no pots. The other architectural point is that, like many of the others in the terrace, the original dormer attic wondows have been replaced with Velux one (this was done well after mam and dad’s involvement with the business ended).

…In 1988, due to a series of heart attacks and major heart surgery, dad had to sell the business. It then became (for registered purposes) the Newcastle Typewriter Co but the shop fascia remained as P.B. Nichols so that established goodwill/trade was continued. My mother continued to work during the handover and retired in 90/91.

Our research shows that, in the early days, most businesses in Heaton sold food but later there was a trend towards suppliers of services (and, later still, more specifically towards cafes and takeaways, lettings agents and services targeted at the current demographic of Heaton) so 188 is typical in that sense.

To the present

In 1993 the business was sold again to Index, which, of course, operated until 2013. Index moved with the times, evolving from typewriters and became a more student-orientated business – a stationer’s.

And now the shop is undergoing another change of ownership and perhaps of business type but in the process Heaton has rediscovered its past.

Can you add to the story?

As usual, we’re looking for your help? What do you know or remember about 188 Heaton Road and its various occupants? Do you remember the typerwiter dealer’s or Lawson’s fruiterer’s? And what are your memories of Index? Please contact Chris Jackson if you can help.

88 Heaton Road – Clough’s Sweet Shop

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Cola bottles, rum truffles, rhubarb and custard, sherbet lemons, pear drops, liquorice torpedoes, cinder toffee, cough candy. Which are your favourites? Many are still sold at Clough’s Sweet Shop on Heaton Road.

How did it all start?

In 1934, Arthur and Edith Clough set up the shop at 88 Heaton Road as a confectioner’s and general dealer’s. With the growth of supermarkets in the 1980s, they dropped the grocery side of the business to concentrate on confectionery.

This part of Heaton Road was built in 1896 as part of a block of shops (with accommodation above). Wards Directory 1898 lists a W.Wilson confectioner at 88 Heaton Road and in 1920 Mosely & Jameson, confectioners, appear. In 1934 Wards records A.W. Bradley confectioner at 90 Heaton Road. So there seems to have been a long tradition of sweetshops in this block.

Arthur and Edith were apparently a good team. Arthur was fetcher, carrier, storeman and bookkeeper. Edith was very good at the sales side of things and window dressing. Virtually everything was bought direct from the manufacturers via the commercial travellers. The shop was open from 9.00 or 9.30 am until 10pm. Arthur and Edith had very little time off from the shop, usually one evening a week. In 1935 an additional shop was opened at 220 Chillingham Road and later a third in Sandyford Road.

War damage

In war time, Arthur volunteered as a fireman in the AFS (Auxiliary Fires Service) where he attained the rank of leading fireman. On 25 April 1941, the Luftwaffe attempted to bomb the railway line but hit the houses of Cheltenham Terrace and Guildford Place, causing utter devastation and many fatalities. The blast blew Clough’s shop windows out and spewed the contents into the street. Arthur’s team turned out but he had to pass his own damaged shop to attend to another location – imagine how that must have felt…..

Arthur and Edith’s three children, Ian, Hazel and Alan, all helped in the shop and were encouraged to learn the trade. After National Service, Ian set up his own shop, Candy Corner, opposite St. Theresa’s Church. In the early days the sweet jars were made of glass and it was hard work when the stock was delivered. The shop on Heaton Road had 2 back rooms, a cellar and two upstairs rooms called ‘The Cadburys Room’ and the ‘Rowntrees Room’.

Cloughs Sweet shop is still very much a going concern run by Alan following the death of his mother Edith in 2001 aged 95 years (Arthur died in 1993). The shop now sells more than 300 kinds of sweets. There are lots of loyal customers who say how pleased they are to be able to come to the shop they used to come to when they were children.

Ian Clough has recently updated his history of the Clough’s family’s sweetshop, which is available for purchase from Cloughs or at Heaton History Group meetings for £2.00. Why not call in and see if they still stock your childhood favourites!

And we’d love to hear your memories of Clough’s. Click on Leave a Reply just below the title of this article or email Chris Jackson.

Ann Denton

60 Heaton Road

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This photograph was taken in front of 60 Heaton Road, the last shop north of the railway line as you walk towards Shields Road, the shop that is now Heaton General Store. We don’t yet know the identity of anyone in the photograph but it was taken in or after April 1923, when the Heaton Road branch of the already well-established Brough’s grocery chain opened.

The photograph is published here by kind permission of Newcastle City Library.

Pioneer

The first Brough to enter the grocery business seeems to have been Edward Brough, who was born on 11 May 1846 in what is now Canada. He was the son of Thomas and Mary Brough, who both came from County Durham. Thomas was an engine wright in the mining industry who, in 1839, was recruited by the famous overseer John Buddle to work for the General Mining Association which, at that time, was beginning to explore the coal reserves in Sydney Mines, Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Mining and engineering expertise from the north east was in great demand at this time and Thomas was just one of the many mining engineers who travelled to far-flung parts of the world.

Letters are held by Durham Record Office which give details of Thomas’s contract (He was to have a house and a fire and ‘pit flannels’ on top of his salary) and also reveal the arrangements for the Brough family’s arduous journey to Canada. There was consternation that there would be no ships from Newcastle for several months and so it was decided that the family should travel by rail to Carlisle (Bear in mind that the railway had only opened the previous year so even this leg of the journey would have been quite an adventure), continue by steamer to Liverpool and then make the long journey across the Atlantic by ship to Nova Scotia.

It was noted by Buddle that Thomas and Mary had three young children aged 7, 5, 3 and 4 months who would also have to make the journey, one which many parents would approach with trepidation even now. A further letter confirmed their arrival in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It appears that the family spent about 10 years in North America. This was in the days of British rule, before the formation of Canada or indeed the American Civil War. The 1851 UK census, however, shows them back in the north east, with two younger children, Mary Ann, 7, and Edward, 4, having been born at Sydney Mines.

Expanding business

At the age of 20, Edward entered the service of a provisions dealer, Edward R Hume and Co. By 1871, he was married to Newcastle girl, Mary Dent and in 1876 he set up a wholesale business, with a friend, John Richardson Frazer. The firm, Frazer and Brough, mainly imported eggs and butter from Denmark. Edward spoke Danish fluently. In 1888, Edward set up independently and introduced his 17 year old son Joseph to the wholesale business.

It was Joseph, however, who first made the move into retail. He left his father’s firm in 1894 and at the turn of the century, Edward sold his own wholesaling business to join his son’s rapidly expanding company. Joseph Brough’s business model was to lower the price of goods to customers by getting them to buying in bulk and enable him to cut out the middleman. Brough’s ‘didn’t deal in pennyworths but sold the customers whole hams, rolled shoulders of bacon and flour, sugar, rice, oatmeal, split peas, lentils in stones or half stones, jams in 7lb jars and so on, recalled Herbert Ellis, a former employee. The shops didn’t have inviting window displays and the interiors were functional rather than attractive places to shop but many of the branches were in colliery towns where the customers placed greater value on the lower prices.

The first Heaton shop opened in 1908, not on Heaton Road but round the corner in North View and was bought as a going concern from another Edward Brough, Edward Hudson Brough, a cousin of Joseph.

‘The building was a long wooden shed, standing alone on the railway embankment, with only the words ‘Groceries and Provisions at Wholesale Prices’ to indicate what went on inside’. (Herbert Ellis)

In c1917, by which time it had 500 employees in branches as far afield as South Yorkshire, Joseph sold the firm to Meadow Dairy Company, which, although it had originated in Newcastle, was by now a national chain. The Brough name was retained, however, and it contained to expand even trying its business model, spectacularly unsuccessfully, in London. A number of changes were introduced: there was less emphasis on buying in bulk and more on deliveries at a time and in quantities to suit the customer. The Meadow Dairy Company later became associated with the Home and Colonial Stores, which some readers may remember.

The 60 Heaton Road shop opened in 1923, under the management of a Mr McKinnon, with the wooden shop on North View closing the following year. Although it was in a better position, there were a number of problems as Herbert Ellis, later to become managing director, recalled:

‘As we couldn’t get possession of the upstairs rooms, we couldn’t hope to do much more trade. There was only the shop and a cellar… it meant keeping light stocks and frequent carting of supplies from Oxford Street, two miles away.’

The firm continued employing ‘travellers’ to call on households and take orders for delivery later. Heaton History Group Honorary President, Alan Morgan, still has a receipt kept by his mother in 1960. Amongst other things, she had bought half a pound of Danish butter (1s 6d), a quarter pound of Typhoo tea (1s 7d) and two pounds of caster sugar (1s 9d). In ‘new’ money that comes to about 24p!

In the 1950s, the company was a pioneer of the self-service model, with the New Bridge Street store apparently being the first in Newcastle. A Sandyford resident who worked there recalls ‘I started as a Saturday girl handing out the baskets.’ [For which she was paid 4s (20p) a Saturday]. ‘I think they had just opened. I started full time the day after I left school, that must have been in 1955. I was also their first floor walker after I saw a woman stealing’ (The woman was caught and the brand new assistant instantly promoted). She could also remember the amazement of new customers seeing this new way of shopping for the first time, many of whom just stopped and stared.

Edward lived a long life. He had wide business interests in addition to grocery. He was chairman of the General Bill Posting Co Ltd, Dunford Steamship Co Ltd and James Scott and Son (1926) Ltd and a trustee and board member of Newcastle Savings Bank. He was also a magistrate and a noted philanthropist, who was especially involved in the Poor Children’s Holiday Association. He died in 1933 well into his nineties.

Edward Brough

Joseph died in 1958. He too was a philanthropist. He presented the Poor Children’s Holiday Association with a house in Whickham which became the Edith Brough Children’s Home and in 1940 he set aside £25,000 to provide for employees in the case of illness or hardship. The charitable trust still exists with an expanded remit.

Joseph Brough

The Heaton shop was still trading in 1973, after around 48 years.

Dynasty

But what preceded Brough’s? This part of Heaton Road was built in the late 1890s and number 60 seems to have been a shop from the very beginning. The trade directories of the time refer to it as ‘Crofton’s Stores – Grocery, Italian Warehousemen and Wine and Spirits Merchants’. The term ‘Italian Warehousemen’ isn’t one we use today but in the nineteenth century, it was a common term for a specialist grocery shop that stocked items such as: oils, pickles, fruits and pasta. We’d probably call it a ‘posh deli’!

Crofton’s was by this time a small chain. The first shop in Blackett Street was opened by Zechariah Crofton, a Morpeth man. Crofton died in 1866 but the business he created continued to expand. By 1898, it was owned by Robert Owen Blayney, the son of Arthur Blayney, a Welsh grocer who as early as 1841 had himself employed 9 men.

Robert died in 1921 by which time the business had passed to his son, Robert Geoffrey Blayney but before then 60 Heaton Road has been sold to another local chain the London and Newcastle Supply Stores, the head office of which was in Grainger Street and which had a number of branches in the north east. The first of a succession of managers, from 1900 – 1901, was Henry Richard Jones, later described as ‘swimming instructor and tea dealer’ who was born in Bellary, India and went on to own the grocer’s shop at 101 Addycombe Terrace.

Still a grocery

We’re not sure who owned the shop between 1973 and 2003 when Heaton Village Store, the latest business to operate from 60 Heaton Road, opened its doors. The business, while not yet quite as long-lasting as Brough’s, is already a very respectable eleven years old, a worthy successor to 60 Heaton Road’s long line of groceries going back some 115 years.

We’d love to hear any memories of Brough’s and find out what came between Brough’s closing around 1973 and Heaton Village Store opening some 30 years later. And can anyone remember 60 Heaton Road before it was self-service?

Caroline Stringer with additional research by Chris Jackson.

Resources consulted include: Dictionary of Business Biography, Brough’s Limited: the story of a business by H G Ellis, 1952 Ward’s and other trades directories, Newcastle Roll of Citizens (all held by Newcastle City Library).