Chorlton's corner shops number 15 ........Shopping at Chas Cowsill's on St Clements Road in 1959

I can’t remember if this shop was still doing the business when I washed up in Chorlton in the mid 1970s.

And before I go any further, yes technically it is not a corner shop, but it pretty much still fits the pattern.

They were small, often existed for fairly short periods and sold almost anything.*

Today it seems odd to remember that there were so many of these shops all selling much the same products and surviving.

The street directories are full of them just around Chorlton Green all within a short walk of Beech Road, and the bigger parades on Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Road.

But people really did just shop next door and in an age before most homes had a refrigerator let alone a freezer, daily shopping was essential, made more so by tight incomes.

I cannot remember either my mum or grandparents doing a “big shop.”  Food was what you bought everyday and as for household products these were got only when strictly needed.

So Mr Cowsill’s fruit shop did the business, and like many others the evidence for its existence can still be seen in the brickwork around window.

Picture; 43-47 St Clement’s Road, A E Landers, 1959, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Corner shops, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Corner%20shops