It is good that the new Co-operative shop in Shinfield is involved with the community but there was also a shop in Spencers Wood some years ago. This one was established in 1921, by the Reading Co-operative Society (RCS) whose Headquarters was in Cheapside, in Reading, in premises owned by McIlroys. Primark, in West Street, occupies these premises today. The Co-op in Spencers Wood was very popular and lasted until the mid 1980s when many protesters objected to its’ closure, to no avail. Before this though, the building housed a small confectionary shop run by Miss Horwood whom the local children called ‘Aunt Em’. Miss Horwood surrounded the shop with a large number of Huntley and Palmers biscuit tins and there wasn’t mu
ch space for sweets. When the shop closed in the 1920s, RCS updated it making it into a modern grocery store. In the early days, the customers would have been personally served by shop assistants after having queued, until shopping was revolutionised by self service with baskets, trolleys and checkouts.
The building and car park was originally owned by Edwin and Mary Dearlove who ran a nursery and landscape gardening business. They had a large family of nine children, some of which went to Spencers Wood School at our library today, and when Lambs Lane School opened in 1908 they transferred there. William, Thomas and Frederick Dearlove went to school from the tender age of three years. The family was there from early 1900 and left for Reading in 1912 as recorded in the Lambs Lane register. The business transferred to Whitley Street and had nurseries that went through to Kendrick Road.
We know nothing about the building before the Dearloves were there but when the Co-operative left, the building was occupied by Delby’s, the refrigeration company. When they moved to Wootton Grange the building was purchased in 1991, extended and occupied by the Society for General Microbiology (SGM). It was this society that called the building Marlborough House. The Society was first formed in 1945 with the first president being Sir Alexander Fleming. As its’ title suggests, the society professionally studies all aspects of microbiology, giving lectures and writing papers for public interest, nationally and internationally. In 2013, the Society moved to London and is now situated at Charles Darwin House. The premises have been sold and we wonder who or what will arrive next.
Margaret Bampton.