{"id":1165,"date":"2014-06-06T16:42:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T16:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2016-01-24T16:26:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T16:26:21","slug":"more-memories-of-the-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/more-memories-of-the-area\/","title":{"rendered":"More memories of the area"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last month we had an enquiry about the Basingstoke Road which prompted some research in the area and the following two businesses were recorded from our memories file.<\/p>\n

Ash Cottage on the Basingstoke Road was occupied by the Belcher family.\u00a0 Leonard Belcher suffered a severe disability as a child and could only walk with a walking stick.\u00a0 However on completing his schooling, he was trained to repair boots and shoes and eventually set up his own successful business with a workshop ably assisted by his mother to begin with. Later on his wife looked after the shop.\u00a0 This remained for many years from the 1920s to the mid 1960s and perhaps the 70s when he retired.<\/p>\n

Janet Bunch remembered him with a pipe and his stick.\u00a0 He sold second hand shoes and Janet coveted a pair of red boots which probably wouldn\u2019t fit her and was dismayed when they were sold to someone else.\u00a0 In 1957, Ron Holyday, whose grandfather lived almost next door, can remember buying some leather boot laces from Leonard.\u00a0 They were sliced from a long, strip of leather.\u00a0 The boot repair business was a shop at the rear of Ash Cottage and part of Leonard\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

There was another boot repairer in the village called Arthur Thorne.\u00a0 Whether he was at the same premises is not clear.<\/p>\n

Spencers Wood Stores<\/strong><\/p>\n

The shop next door to Belchers, in the late 1900s, was originally a draper\u2019s shop selling clothes, as well as drapery owned by Mr Charles Ballard.\u00a0 It was taken over by Mr Sant, by 1910 until the 1920s, selling similar wares.\u00a0 Sant would also used to sell his goods door-to-door travelling the local area.\u00a0 Early in the 1920s, it closed and changed to a general shop and caf\u00e9 with net curtains half way up across the window behind which the diners would eat in an area separated from the shop by a wooden partition.\u00a0 Robin Drinkwater can remember his brother, Arthur, holding his wedding reception there.<\/p>\n

There were two others who were drapers namely, Edward Hatch in the 1920s and his son and Frank Austin, in the 1930s, shown as an outfitter and draper.\u00a0 As far as we know, the general store was run by Miss Alice Mulgrew as a grocer and confectioner in the 1940s and then in the 1950s was owned by Brian Davey.\u00a0 When Mr Thomas owned it, it was a grocers and caf\u00e9.\u00a0 The next owner was Mr Hibberd and finally Mr Pandher.\u00a0 It has been called London House Stores.<\/p>\n

Margaret Bampton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month we had an enquiry about the Basingstoke Road which prompted some research in the area and the following two businesses were recorded from our memories file. Ash Cottage on the Basingstoke Road was occupied by the Belcher family.\u00a0 … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spencers-wood-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/swlhg.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}