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Market Street in Old Photographs
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Looking up Market Street from outside the Swan Hotel in about 1900. The traffic consists of a horse-drawn wagon, perhaps laden with sacks of wool, accompanied by two pedestrians. The Town Hall (left) has a nice gas light, but the stonework is black with soot after only 50 years of pollution. The road has yet to be defaced by painted lines and zebra crossing.
The junction of Market Street and The Shambles before 1900. Boorman’s drapery shop on the left had become Soul’s by 1906. The next building was William Summers’ Shambles Steam Bakery; it was replaced by a new Co-op building in 1930. On the other side, the low building was demolished to make way for the Post Office in 1901. The tall building beyond went for an extension of the Post Office in 1930.
Another photograph, from a postcard, showing how safe it was to walk in the road or sit on the kerb in around 1905. Soul’s drapery and millinery shop is now the Stroud & Swindon Building Society and has lost the projecting shop window and two windows on the floor above. Next door is Albert Nichols, grocer and wine merchant, later Nichols & Bushell, now the Dandy Lion pub. The ironmonger William Bigwood seems to have taken over the pavement outside his shop further up.
The printing works, seen here in the 1890s, were those of Charles Rawling who was also in charge of the Post Office in the the next building. The printer is now The Town Club and Stumble Inn and the Post Office is Hair @28 hairdressers.
Looking down Market Street after 1919 when the fountain-lamp was placed in front of the Swan Hotel in memory of Lieutenant Dainton, son of the baker in Bridge Street, killed in the Great War. The printing works on the left had been the Maiden Head Inn, but was by this time the Conservative Club, now the Town Club and Stumble Inn.
Fifty years later and it is still possible to walk in the road safely and the white lines haven’t arrived yet. Uncles’ shoe shop has moved up the road from the junction of Silver Street.
This part of Market Street has changed very little; the house in the centre has since been painted white. The arched recess on the left covers the ancient Pippet Well, which supplied water to this area of the town before the coming of mains water in 1883.
Stan Green (on the right hand side) in the door of his bicycle and toy shop at 16 Market Street in around 1960. He was also selling petrol, radios and car batteries at that time. It became Carter & Harding opticians and is now an office.
A view up Market Street in the 1960s. The 17th century building on the right was at that time a gift shop called Greytiles that was run by C.E.C. Meade. Like many buildings in Bradford that were made of rubble stone, it was then covered with a coat of whitewash paint. Next door is the Town Club, made of ashlar which was too good to paint. It retains a small pediment on its parapet, which must have been removed not long afterwards.
A colour photograph of Market Street in 1962. At its centre is the shoe shop of Uncles & Son, with the company’s Austin A35 delivery van outside. Today it would be parked on the zebra crossing and possibly towed away. Next door was the shop of W.E. Williams Ltd, general drapers.
