Clover Leaf Ice Cream

We have recently been given another advert from Harry Hobbs’ shop which stood more or less opposite the Green Dragon on Market Lavington High Street. This one is a metal sign on legs which could have been set in the ground or perhaps in a stand. It advertises a brand of ice cream which is not familiar to us.

Advert for Clover Leaf Ice Cream from Harry Hobbs’ shop in Market Lavington

We understand that Harry Hobbs shut down his grocery business in about 1960 although he continued to be the newsagent for some time after that. This sign, battered as it is, probably dates from the 1950s.

There is an ice cream company trading in Reading in Berkshire called Lucky Clover Leaf Ice Cream. There’s an outside chance it could be the same company but the clover leaves shown on this advert sign are clearly three leaf variants and not the supposedly lucky four leaf clover.

Maybe there is somebody out there who can tell us more.

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A Persil Advert

This is yet another advert from Harry Hobbs’ High Street shop. This one was designed to be used with its product – a giant sized box of Persil.

1950s Persil advert from Harry Hobbs’ Market Lavington shop

Persil is a laundry detergent and when it was introduced, in 1907, it was the first such product to combine bleach with the detergent chemicals. It reached the UK in 1909. The name Persil actually is derived from the two compounds of sodium which went inter it which were sodium perborate and sodium silicate. It was, and still is, a widely used washing product but of course, the style and constituents have changed.

So has the price since Harry Hobbs’ advert was on display. This may have been in the late 1950s. The cheapest we could find a present day Persil family pack – to do 35 wash loads, was £6. That £6 would have bought 192 of Harry Hobbs’ giant size packs.

We believe it is relatively more expensive now as well. Perhaps it is as much as four times more expensive. But maybe the product from more than half a century ago had less to contend with than today’s washing product.

It’s a wonderful item – like all the ads from Harry’s shop.

Water Biscuits

What do many of us like at the end of a meal? Well, for some of us a bit of cheese goes down well – with a crispy biscuit to hold it. Harry Hobbs obviously sold water biscuits in his Market Lavington High Street shop for amongst the adverts we now have there is this one.

Advert for Carr’s Table Water Biscuits from Harry Hobbs’s shop – about 1953

This is for table water biscuits by Carr’s of Carlisle and it shows a variety of cheeses and a platter of water biscuits.

The slogans say, ‘The perfect biscuit with cheese’, and ‘Set the seal on a perfect meal’.

It’s a large advert and one wonders how space was found to display it in a smallish shop.

This particular ad has an actual clue as to its date.

By appointment to the late King George VI.

King George VI died in 1952 so this dates from after his death.

It’s another lovely advert to remind us of past times.

Pat-a-Fish

We are looking at another advert from Harry Hobbs’ shop today. Most of these adverts date back to the 1950s. We wonder if this one is from the 1960s.

Advert for Pat-a-Fish crumbs from Harry Hobbs’ shop on High Street, Market Lavington

This is an advert for breadcrumbs. Our curator says his mother would have been horrified at the idea of buying breadcrumbs. Any bits of stale bread were used for that task. In fact, our curator recalls, it was his job to break the bread up into smaller pieces and put them in a Moulinex grater. Apparently, he loved winding the handle and watching the wonderfully even breadcrumbs fall out of the bottom.

But maybe the busy working wife without a willing son might have found it quicker and easier to buy breadcrumbs – particularly when invited to by a rather sexy, lipstick wearing fish with a catchy little phrase – ‘crumbs! they’re good!’ to encourage her. And as our curator remembers, the crumbs he produced weren’t golden and golden crumbs certainly sound grand.

We feel very lucky to have these old adverts. They do bring back memories and get museum visitors talking about their own past.

 

Another advert from Harry Hobbs’ shop

Harry ran his High Street shop from 1934 through to 1968. Regular readers will know we were recently given some large card adverts found in the loft.

Here’s another of them.

1950s advert for Chivers products found at the former shop of Harry Hobbs in High Street, Market Lavington

Here we see three housewives and the more matronly looking one has filled her basket with Chivers products. The two younger women are clearly full of admiration for the wise older lady.

Behind the ladies – and they are physically as well as artistically behind for this poster has real depth there is a rural idyll scene with an olde worlde village shop advertising Chivers jam. In the background, up on the hill is a castle of the size of Windsor. It made some of us, at the museum think royalty. Perhaps that was in the advertiser’s mind.

We are fairly sure this dates from the 1950s. What a wonderful item it is

 

Wordley’s Advertise

This advert was taken from the Wiltshire Gazette for 12^th November 1953. A. S Wordley were agricultural engineers based in the Market Place, Market Lavington

Advertisement for Wordley’s Agricultural Engineers of Market Lavington. From a 1953 newspaper.

Many is the time that words can paint pictures and this advert paints a picture of long gone days. One thing that has pretty well vanished in the 60 years since the advert appeared, is adverts in the local paper for anything to do with agriculture. A look through a January 2013 edition found that there were ads for jobs in farming but, despite editorial content about farming no ads for equipment. Times change. Farmers tend to work to a bigger scale and no doubt get much more information from national magazines and, what you are reading now – the Internet

The bigger scale of farming is made clear by the ads for combines. The big one advertised has a twelve foot cut. These days a combine is likely to have had those feet changed to metres. This one worked on Lavington Hill in September 2012 and it has a 12 metre cut.

Large combine harvester at worjk on Lavington Hill in September 2012

Prices, perhaps more than compensate. The £1625 for a 12 foot cut diesel combine has become in excess of £300 000 for the present day monster. In real terms that’s about fair for you’d have needed three of the old machines to do nearly as much as the present one.

The other thing that has vanished from Market Lavington is the agricultural engineer. T H White, once a Market Lavington firm (click here) still operate in Devizes.

Lastly, we could comment on nice, simple, 4 digit phone numbers. They were so much easier to remember than today’s strings of numbers. Mind you, these days, with the right equipment, we can talk to our phone and just tell it to dial a named person, and it will do it.

Any memories of life at Wordley’s would be greatly appreciated.

Shredded Wheat Box

Many local folk will have seen that the former Market House is being done up at the moment. The builders got in touch with the museum to see what photos we had of this building in the past and since then we have kept in contact. Not so long ago some fragments were found from the 1930s, stuffed into what Was meant to be a ventilator. Bits of newspaper gave the age away. Here we have a bit of an advert from the News of the World for November  19^th 1939.

Newspaper found in The Market House, Market Lavington

But also found was a bit of a shredded wheat box which id definitely contemporary with the newspaper.

Part of a Shredded Wheat box also found in Market Lavington’s Market House

I’m sure we are all glad to know that this product is 100% food!

Shredded Wheat used to be made in Welwyn Garden City and we found this image, showing the box on the website at http://www.ourwelwyngardencity.org.uk/.

Shredded Wheat recipe book of 1936 shows a picture of the box found in Market Lavington

The recipe book was given to visitors to the factory which is depicted on the box.

You’ll be able to try one of the recipes from the book at our Museum Miscellany next week.

Shredded Wheat Banana Buns

4 large tablespoons of crumbled Shredded Wheat; 2 large bananas cut very thin; milk; caster sugar.

Mix the Shredded Wheat with half a cup of warm milk; put the bananas in a basin with the Shredded Wheat; beat them up well and roll out; cut up into 3-inch lengths; roll out in caster sugar, and bake until a golden brown in small tins.

When banks served villages.

Time was when banks came to people rather than the other way around. In the 1970s there were two banks with premises in Market Lavington, both operating part time. A third company operated a mobile bank which took its turn in Lavington.

In 1967, the two banks with premises both placed ads in the local paper announcing extensions of opening hours.

There was the Midland Bank.

The Midland Bank advertise longer opening hours in Market Lavington

And there was Lloyds Bank – who maybe felt they had to follow suit to keep business.

Snap! Lloyds Bank follow suit and extend opening hours in Market Lavington

Now there are no banks in the village although, of course, some transactions can be carried out at the Post Office.

Peggy Gye, our former curator, was adamant in her belief that the closure of the banks had a knock on effect on other shops. If people were banking in the village, they shopped there as well, but when the banks closed, people had to go to Devizes and so they shopped there instead.

These days, with internet and armchair banking, it hardly matters to many people just where the bank branches are. If we need cash we can use a ‘hole in the wall’ or get cashback from the supermarket. The need for physical buildings and real people to help customers probably is much reduced.

And while shops have closed in Market Lavington, we still have a supermarket, a newsagent, the post office, a butcher, a chemist etc – so it seems that many retail outlets have survived the closure of the banks.

Ferris and Culverwell Devizes and District Guide

1960 guide to Devizes and District - including Market Lavington and Easterton

This little booklet may clearly have 1959 hand written on the front, but in fact it is a 1960 edition. The information would have been collected in 1959.

The interest in this book comes mostly from the adverts – the firms in Market Lavington that helped to make the little guide financially viable. Let’s see who advertised, with a Market Lavington address.

Peter Francis Photographer - of Market Lavington

Peter Francis was advertising his photography business.

A Hinxman of Lavington Station

A Hinxman had a coal depot at Lavington Station.

Potter's Stores of Market Lavington

Potter’s, run by G S and E M Prowse were clearly proud of being able to sell frozen food.

The Gyes were builders, carpenters etc in Market Lavington

The Gyes were proud of the length of time they had been in operation.

Mr King was a Market Lavington painter and decorator

Kings were also long established but seemingly had no phone number at the time.

Sad to say, we think none of these businesses still operate although, of course, it is still possible to find a photographer, get coal, buy groceries, or find builders and decorators in Market Lavington.

Selling the old vicarage in 1956

Many people, these days, won’t know that there was a former vicarage in Market Lavington. It was in use, as such, until the 1940s when the present house, near the church, became ‘The Vicarage’. With changes to parishes, that building is now, ‘The Rectory’.

The old vicarage became a large private house and, more recently it became the care home in the village.

It came up for sale in 1956 with an estate agent booklet to boost interest. We have a copy of this booklet at Market Lavington Museum. Interestingly, it has notes on it which tell us what the place sold for.

A photo was attached to the front of the brochure.

The Old Vicarage, Market Lavington from the 1956 sale brochure.

The brochure front gives details of the sale. This is where a note taker has recorded bids and final sale price, for lots 1, 2 and 3 – although we see that lot 3 didn’t sell. In fact the first attempt, to sell the three lots together failed too.

The front cover of the sales brochure

So what were the lots? Lot one was the house and gardens. The house itself had four reception rooms, seven bedrooms and three bathrooms as well as kitchen, scullery and ample halls. There was a cellar with the central heating boiler. Outside there were gardens running to about an acre and a half together with a coach house, another garage, stabling for three horses with tack rooms, a greenhouse and other buildings for storage of various commodities. Wow! All that for £2750.

Lot 2 was pasture land amounting to about three and a bit acres. Mr Buckland leased this land on a verbal arrangement and paid £10 per year. Mr Buckland, who bought the land must surely have felt he’d had a bargain at £10 per year.

The third lot remained unsold. This was the cottage and attached single storey shop which was next to the old parish room. This – the three bedroom cottage, shop and gardens failed to sell with a highest bid of £300. The property was let to ‘elderly’ Mrs Hopkins on a controlled rent of £13 per annum. Presumably nobody was willing to gamble on how long poor Mrs Hopkins would live. It must have been an unsettling time for her.