I’ve been sent some brilliant photos of the old shops on Mill Road. They were a little scratched and damaged so I’ve restored them for you to enjoy.
Andrew sent me this photo of Cliff Davies’ grocery shop that was at 24 Mill Road. He told me, “Cliff Davies was my grandfather and he had the grocery shop at 24, which is the house I grew up in. He was also a very popular local councillor. After he died in the mid-sixties the shop was rented out by his widow and then by my mother to a series of people. The first continued it as a grocery shop and after that it became an antiques shop and then a cash register repair shop. Sometime in the mid-seventies my mother stopped renting it out and the shop became part of the house again.”
He also has this brilliant photo of number 2 Mill Road. Andrew said, “The shop at number 2 was a similar setup. It was originally run by Dolph (I assume Adoplhus?) and Gertie, and then their daughter Gwen and her husband Dennis (I think that was his name). I’m not sure if Dolph or Dennis had the surname Davies. After their days the shop was run for many years by David Ford, who was also the local Scoutmaster.”
The last photo is of the Whitsun Outing, taken in the 1950s outside number 2 Mill Road. You can see the shop name has been removed and the window signs are different.
Massive thanks to Andrew for sharing his photos.
If anyone else has old photos of the village, I’d love to be able to share them. You can get in touch by email or Tweet me.
No 8 Mill Road was also a shop run by Miss Louie (Williams?) it was a small shop selling cigarettes/tobacco and general items, when you went in you steps back to the early 1900s, there was only gas lighting and a cold tap. She was born in the Yukon Canada during the Klondike gold rush and it was said she slept with a gun under the pillow
I remember Louie from the 50s. The tiny shop at 8 Mill Road was very old fashioned, with wooden counter and bare floorboards and often she would take a while to appear from the back parlour usually in her carpet slippers. I remember there were jars full of loose sweets and lots of bottles of fizzy ‘pop’, limeade, orangeade, cherryade, all the colours of the rainbow . When you caught a glimpse of it, her parlour looked dark and Victorian, rather mysterious to a young boy, with a red velvet cover draped over the table on which stood an oil lamp My Nan (Clara Collings) lived at 11 Mill Road and she sometimes gave me a few pennies to go and spend at Louie’s. I had no idea she had such a colourful past though! I also remember the stores opposite the Lewis Arms which always seemed busy and the newsagents (Philips?) on the opposite side of the main road. My aunt and uncle (Violet and Harry Lippett) lived at 3 Greenmeadow Drive and so I was a frequent visitor to the Ton as a young boy and loved every minute.
I have very fond memories of my daily stop-off at the Castle Stores (or “Fordy’s” as we called it) on the way home from school. It was a very rustic shop, but it had pretty much everything you’d need, not to mention a substantial confectionary stand with sweets you could buy by the quarter. 🙂
Yes Davies is correct. Gwen was my Aunt. My parents Herbert and Elizabeth Davies lived briefly with Gwen and Dennis after I was born, before moving to the house they built on Birch Hill.
I remember ‘uncle’ Dolph and ‘aunty’ Gertie well.
Yes their name was Davies, the shop was always referred to as “Dolfs” Gwen and Dennis had two daughters Judith and Rosalind. Rosalind was/is a member of Castell Coch choir.