The Spar shop

This postcard from the 1970s shows the Spar shop on Church Street, Market Lavington, just to the left of the telegraph pole.

Over the years, it had been the home to various different grocery stores though, in earlier times, the building had been a Baptist Chapel, as seen in this postcard from 1910.

At Market Lavington Museum, we have a flyer introducing the new Spar shop to potential customers. Selling points were its long opening hours – twelve hours on Mondays to Saturdays and four hours on a Sunday.

On the reverse there is the temptation of fresh bread and a wide range of provisions along with the possibility of renting video films.

There is no longer a grocery store in this building, though there is still a Co-op store in the village.

A 1973 building application map

In our previous blog post we were reminded that, before the surgery moved into the Workman’s Hall/Scouts’ building in 1981, it had been in a caravan.

Going back to 1973, an application was made for permission to site the doctor’s caravan in a car park and we have the map used for this in our museum collection.

We see that it was approved in June 1973. The map shows the site of the caravan placement, marked in red.

It is always interesting to look at old maps of familiar places, allowing us to spot the differences from the current situation. This application was made almost fifty years ago and many things have changed in that half century.

Over on the left (west) we see Grove Farm, with the farmhouse roughly where the Community Hall now stands. The many fields to the north and west of it are now covered with the roads and homes of the Grove Farm housing estate.

More centrally, we see that Bouverie Drive has been built but that the vicarage and the old wood clad parish room are marked on the map. This area is now the nursing home.

We have a large collection of maps of the area in our collection. Many of these are in the map chest upstairs. If you are able to visit the museum, do ask our volunteer stewards if you would like to look at any of the maps.

Doctor on the move

Over the years, Market Lavington has had its doctor’s surgery in various different locations. Dr Ashford Brown saw his patients in a room at his home, Greystone House, on the High Street.

When Dr Jonathan Miller took on the role, he spent the first few years based in a caravan

Our scrapbook of newscuttings shows that he moved into a building in 1981.

There was, later, a move to a house in Church Street before Building the Surgery in its current location.

At Market Lavington Museum, we have a case on Medical Matters in our new display room upstairs.

Fewer mod cons in the 1920s

At Market Lavington Museum, we are very grateful to those folk who have taken the time to write down their memories of life in times gone by.

One of those long time village inhabitants was Theresa Gale, who produced some writing for the Women’s Institute. See Theresa Gale remembers.

She grew up in Bromham but came to our village after she married. Life was not so convenient then. At the museum, we have artefacts and pictures that match with her memories.

We have the yoke used by village shoemaker and cobbler, Ken Mundy.

We do have a toilet roll, but newspaper would have been used in many of the outside privies.

‘And a candle to go to bed.’

‘And get up in the morning to light a fire and boil a kettle and get some warmth.’

‘What a blessing when we could buy a primus.’

In the days before tights

Although tights as we know them were invented in the late 1950s, it was well into the 1960s before many people were wearing them. Prior to that, nylon stockings, one for each leg were the norm.

These had to be held up to prevent them from falling down to one’s ankles. A suspender belt was worn around the waist and four suspenders dangled down from it, with sliding clips to attach to the stockings.

At Market Lavington Museum, we have an unused pair of replacement suspenders, with loops at the top, so they could be slid onto the suspender belt.

Like many of our museum artefacts, they may well bring back memories to some of our older readers.

Celebrating Trinity Church centenary

In 1992, it was a hundred years since the building of the Congregational Church in Market Lavington. When it joined with a couple of other local churches, it changed its name to Trinity Church.

We have already seen the bricks being delivered for Building the chapel and some of Mrs Hobbs’ memories of the chapel in earlier times in 100 Years of the Congregational/Trinity Church.

At Market Lavington Museum, we have some reminders of how the centenary was celebrated. As well as church services, there was a flower festival, a square dance and a bazaar.

Village historian and museum founder, Peggy Gye, had some photos of Lavington on display and people could have refreshments there too.

A tiny food production certificate

Amongst our very varied collection of items with a connection to Market Lavington and Easterton, we have this very small folder containing a certificate.

It dates from the last year of the first world war and was issued by the Food Production Department of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.

It was issued to James Welch, the grandfather of our museum founder, Peggy Gye. We have already seen an item used by James in https://marketlavingtonmuseum.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/a-long-corer/.

What is rather surprising is that his role was that of horse officer. Our records say that horse officers purchased horses for the cavalry, which seems to have little connection with food production and agriculture and fisheries.

Prices at the Co-op in 1975

When Britain changed to decimal currency in 1971, there were 100 pennies in the pound, instead of the 240 pence to the old imperial pound. That meant that a new penny was worth two and a half old pence. In order to have a coin for paying for low value items a tiny half penny coin was minted and remained in circulation until 1984.

So, when the Co-op in Market Lavington re-opened in 1975 as a self-service store, some of the prices where in whole and half pence.

As well as tempting shoppers back with a promise of double stamps, there were also money off coupons, some of which have been cut from our advert. The stamps were little blue loyalty stamps which you stuck in a book. When this was full, the book could be used to get money off your shopping in the Co-op.

The shop re-opened a month before Christmas and the back page encouraged people to stock up on alcohol for the festive season.

A new era at the Co-op

There has been a Co-op shop on the High Street in Market Lavington for a long time.

We have seen it looking very old fashioned in Food shops before supermarkets. However, at Market Lavington Museum, we have evidence of it taking a leap into modern times in November 1975.

It must have been closed for re-furbishment and we have a leaflet announcing its re-opening as a supermarket on 27th November 1975,

Customers were being tempted back on opening day with the chance to buy a chicken for half price if they bought other groceries totalling £3 or more.

We will look inside the leaflet next time, when you can compare the prices with those of similar items today.

Barrel rolling – 1984

In our previous blog post, we looked at the barrel rolling competition held in Market Lavington in 1983.

The following year, a similar event attracted competitors from at least three pubs. The newscutting in our scrap book mentions the Drummer Boy and the Kings Arms, both in Market Lavington, but no longer trading. The Royal Oak, still open for business, is in neighbouring Easterton. The Volunteer Inn, also a pub now lost to Market Lavington, gets a mention in the article, so may have entered a team too.

Once again, there was a tug of war across the Broadwell and a fancy dress competition as well as the rolling of barrels up the White Street hill.