Rediscovering the shop on Wilbraham Road of Mr. Worthing Brice ....... fishmonger and poulterer ..

A little bit of Chorlton’s history resurfaced just before Christmas, in what was Shareen Fashions on Wilbraham Road.

There on the wall, unseen for perhaps sixty years were the original wall tiles, from when the shop first opened.

Just when the tiles were hidden under a false wall, I guess I will never know, but a trawl of the directories will reveal its different owners; and what they sold.

So, I know Shareen Fashion were trading from the place in 1974, and that five years earlier it was the wallpaper shop of R. R. Minton, and there will have been others.

But it began as the fishmonger and poulterer’s business of Mr. Worthington Brice, who also has the sweetshop next door.

And so, it may well have been the Brice’s who chose the tiles, and the line of fish which ran along the wall.

Mr. Brice died in 1926 and was buried in Southern Cemetery, and three years later his wife was living at 10 Holland Road, which may have been the family home from much earlier.

I also know that the couple had a shop in Bramhall in 1924, but whether this was shop number two or a change of location I have yet to discover.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; wall tiles, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson