Pictures that don’t need words ….. Beech Road within living memory

I say the pictures don’t need any words, but there will be some who find the scenes so different that they may just want to question the location.

But we are on Beech Road, just a decade or so after the “bar and café society made inroads into what had once been a just a small traditional row of local shops.

When I moved onto Beech Road in 1976, there was still a grocery store, Muriel and Richard’s veg shop, two butcher’s and two bakeries.  

Added to these were two offi’s, a wool shop and the pet shop.

Not to be outdone by these there was the hardware store where you could buy a ball of waxed string, three nails, two candles and a gallon of paraffin while taking in that mix of smells which came from the paraffin, the old wooden floorboards, and bars of washing soap.

By the time I began recording the road in pictures it was already changing but still retained much that belonged to an older time.

I wish I had added dates to the images, but back then I was lazy.  

Most will be from around the early 2000s and might stretch into sometime around 2008.

The fun will be to remember when Muriel & Richard closed their fruit and veg store, the Fabric emporium moved on and Diamond Dog’s took over the premises of Bryan the Book.

And that I will leave to others.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Beech Road in the early 2000’s from the collection of Andrew Simpson