Shops

Back in blog 60 we looked at the corner shops in the village, and it attracted lots of comments. I thought it might be fun to look at the village centre shops this time and see what we can discover

There’s so much history to discover about all the old shops, not just in Whitchurch, but in Llandaff Yard, Tongwynlais, Birchgrove and Rhiwbina; probably enough to fill a few books at least

Today however, I’ll just look at Whitchurch, and then only a small part, from the Plough to the Royal Oak. This little block, bookended by the two pubs in Whitchurch is a fascinating journey on how our village grew, and surprisingly when!

At the time the Tithe Map was surveyed, the plot was just a large field on the corner of the main road and the winding side road (later to become Old Church Road). By the 1841 census, ‘Whitchurch House’ had been built on the corner and was occupied by John Thomas, a tailor and his family

Ten years later, this detached house was occupied by Reuben Lewis and his family. He was a blacksmith, and it looked like another house had been built next door called Ty Clyd (and was occupied by a retired farmer)

By 1861, another double-fronted house had been built at the southern end (the future Royal Oak pub), and five small terraced cottages built in between. The house next to the Plough had a roof much higher, I wonder whether it had been built like that originally? These eight properties, forming the block, remained pretty much unchanged for the following 90 years

The census of 1861 lists Reuben as now living in ‘The Plough Inn’, and he was now a publican; the start of the village shopping area!

We’ve all seen the old photographs of the block, some from the tower of St Mary’s and others from street view, showing how the block changed (or didn’t change) over the following decades

By 1877 the Royal Oak was an established pub (with the landlord George Roberts, in deep trouble with the licensing bench), but the terraced cottages seemingly still family houses

Kelly’s directory of 1916 notes that the house next to the Plough was now a fish and chip shop. It must have been sometime later that the Plough expanded into this house

It wasn’t until after WW1, that half of the Royal Oak was extended into the front garden to become a chemist. I’ve heard folk talk about ‘Ducks’, would this have been the same?

The sketch shows the block back then with the Plough on the left-hand end

There’s a terrific BBCTV archive video of the village (dated 1959-62) which shows the block hardly changed, but with the tiny chemist shop displaying a ‘Boots’ sign. There was also a hint of building work at the front of the Royal Oak

There’s also an old photograph which shows one of the small cottages as Tru-View (was this an early TV shop as well as wireless sets?). That old photograph also shows the redeveloped Boots in the distance

By the early 1970s, when we arrived in Whitchurch, the terraced houses had all been replaced with the large block of shops we know today. The Maypole had two of the four units, then Halewood’s and then John James next to Boots. Chris remembers Bartletts the hairdresser being over the shops

Since then, it’s all changed again, with Peacocks next to the Plough, then a charity shop, and then a solicitors shop alongside Boots

I wonder when the Royal Oak had its ‘mock-Tudor’ frontage added? Might it have been in the late 1950s when the Boots shop was redeveloped. Does anyone remember?

The last 170+ years has seen such a change to this little corner of the village, and the other parts have been just the same. What memories or photographs do you have which will help AWEN grow the archive of the village?

And what about Llandaff Yard, Tongwynlais, Birchgrove and Rhiwbina? So much to explore! Maybe, if we have time, we can look at the shops in these areas in a further blog

And in the summer, perhaps, we could have a session in the library with the large maps and the old photographs and see what the shops were across the parish at different times. What do you think?

 

 

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