A High Street for Horses

These days Market Lavington High Street is dedicated to the motor vehicle but as we have seen it wasn’t always so. Back in the 1950s the car or van was there, but not in vast numbers. If we go back 100 years then the car was virtually unknown. Today’s picture of the High Street dates from that era. It is taken from more or less outside the Co-op looking towards and beyond the crossroads.

Market Lavington High Street about a hundred years ago – A High Street for Horses!

On the left we have the Elisha’s shop and then a group of people surround a pram.

A pram of the period

Beyond the pram was Mr Whitchurch’s drug store and then the Kings Arms – which was receiving a delivery of beer. The dray, of course, was horse drawn.

The dray delivers at the Kings Arms

Beyond the dray is The Red House where James Neate lived. He was a wine and spirit merchant and had a brewery which supplied his own pub – The Brewery Tap on White Street. Further on we look down into Church Street.

On the right side we have Mr Burgess’s shop. He was the photographer and probably took this photo. Outside his shop there’s a small horse drawn wagon. Further down we can make out another horse drawn wagon. This could be outside where the newsagent is now.

Four wheels on the wagon outside Mr Burgess’s shop

What a delightful, if sadly faded,  photo.

White Street in the early 1950s

Dating a photograph

Our original caption for this photo gives a span of 1945 – 1955 for this photograph. The subject is  White Street, Market  Lavington, taken from near Broadwell and looking past the crossroads (Lamb Corner) and up Parsonage Lane.

White Street in about 1950 - a photo at Market Lavington Museum

At first site this could look like a photo from long ago,but there are clues to its age if you look carefully.

First of all, the label on the original postcard is in the style of the Burgess family which doesn’t help much with the date for the Burgess family were market Lavington’s photographers for more than 70 years,

At the left there is a telegraph pole so electricity had come to the area. Somewhat hidden along White Street is a car. It looks like an Austin Ruby 7 dating from the mid 1930s but still a common site on roads into the 1950s.

The house on the corner of Parsonage Lane, just behind that car has been demolished which also helps date things to after the 1930s.

There do not seem to be TV aerials. Many households got their first TV in 1953 to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The complete absence of these TV receivers almost certainly means the photo dates from before 1953.

But the real give away is the pram outside a house.

That looks very much like the sort of pram used in the 1950s.

At the museum, we believe that a baby was born to the couple who lived in the thatched house in 1949 (and another in 1955) so we think the picture dates from 1950.