Rushden Research Group: Old shops of the High Street 1930s-1950s

Old Shops of the High Street

1930s - 1950s

Some of the postcards of High Street shops that we have copied.
We have little information but what is found in the Trade Directories.


late 1930s - Southam's & Robinson's left - Wills' right	No 2 Church Street to 13 High Street in the 1950s

G A Saxby pork butcher traded at no. 63 - opposite the Succoth Church. Potted beef, pork dripping and faggots were some of the favourites! 1949	Co-op Permanent Building Society sign left, Thomas' newsagents and ladies hairdresser, Lloyds Bank and the Railway Inn. High St North

28 Victoria Road - close to High Street
Kelly's Directory tells us Mrs Charlotte Ellen Bugby
ran this from 1928 until at least 1940.

Sydney J W Payne - Confectioner & Pastry Cook
He traded here from 1922 to 1939 at 112 High Street, and
came from Kettering where his father, also a baker, traded.
Sydney was noted for his pork pies and wedding cakes.

I Haigh's & The Electricity Showroom facing Marriott's farm (demolished 1937)

c1936 Yorks Bros at 106, Swart at 104 and before Coltons came to 102

At first Yorks Bros ran coach travel and then also rail travel

c1940 - Yorks Travel were at 106 High Street.

J G Swart - at 104 High Street optician with clock.

Colton's shoe shop at 102, later moved to 120.

At No. 100 is a Co-op - Pharmacy, which had been previously kept by William Wright.

(left) Travel Label from the 1980s

No 86 High Street shortly before it was demolished.
H Jackson took over Seckington's Seeds and Nursery.
He moved to 76 High Street.

84 - Millard's Fruit Shop, 82 - Timpson's Shoes, 80 - Ashby & Ellis tailors
opposite the old Feathers Inn - note the old lamp post too. All now gone!

Feathers Inn c1950 with the old sign, Roses Fashion centre, and M Tomalin

M Tomalin & Son (left) were dyers at 85 High Street from about 1914
into the 1940s, next is Currys (1927) Ltd, cycle makers at 87 High Street.
The largest blind on the right is on Liptons Grocers.

62 High Street was a Lipton's grocery store - from 1921 traded here into the 1960s.

c1940 before the bus shelter was erected outside the chapel ..... and rails shortly before the shelter.

Lion Terrace - Burtons, House, Barlow's, Willmott's c1955

Central High Street c1957
left: Peacocks, Northampton Town & County Building Society, and bus stop
right: the blind is at Liptons Grocers, next to a bus stop outside the Independent Wesleyan Church. Traffic if running both ways, so pre 1959!

Co-op Menswear with Freeman Hardy & Wills and S F Webb c1950s


Flavell Hart (left) in the 1950s - Courtesy of Clive Wood	and in the 1960s

Fosters , Knight Jeweller & Superspot c1958

High Street Traders - news