Shopping Down the Years Collection

A collection concerning Newton, Southend and Mumbles Shops down the years

Table of Contents

Jean and son Julian, outside the Wool Shop

1980-1999

Known to her customers and friends as, 'Jean The Wool'. Jean, ran the shop was situated at the corner of Gower Place and Dunns Lane, between 1980 and 1999.

by Sylvia Webborn

If you lived in Southend, you had no need to go as far as the village as everything you needed could be there ...

Myra Evans is pictured inside Cowley Newsagents & Toy Shop

by Carol Powell

Then we would come to Cowley's the newsagent and toy shop(now Lewis News) where I could, if I was allowed, spend hours choosing cardboard cut-out ...

.Having polished off my bun, I would naturally turn left . . .

1950-1990

by Stuart Batcup

Having spent an idyllic childhood playing and exploring all these places, I thought it would be fun to retrace some of my childhood steps.

Our Trek, using the 1844 Tithe Map takes us to the site of the building originally known as Thistleboon House and 'The Final Push . .

1960s

by Julie Meredith

When staying with my Nan, Flo, in Gower Place Mumbles during the 1960s, I was often sent to the shop to buy my Uncle's cigarettes - Senior Service with no ...

1950s

by Hilary Mackenzie

I remember seeing exhausted-looking young mothers pushing prams up the very steep hill, leaving them in the garden and carrying babies and shopping into ...

1940-1960

By John Powell


... Grant-Shute: What a surprise, someone kept a shopping bill from ... and all those who worked in the shop (and other local shops) contributed in ...

1950s

by Hazel Hickson

(née Arnold)

I know every one of my age will remember what a Parlour Shop was, but the younger generation probably would not even know what a parlour was—a sitting room ...

1945

by Cynthia Clapton

One day, when I was old enough to go to the vill­age alone, my mother sent me to get a few groceries from the village.

in the Second World War 1939-1945

by Kate Elliott, Carol Powell and John Powell

It was decided to ration the foods and materials, which were imported—bananas and citrus fruit all but disappeared from the shops. In addition, wartime rationing of ...

War-time food and cookery demonstration -Wikimedia

1939-1945

by John Wright



by Kate Jones

Saturday 30 November 1940: Took Bayney, Sylvia and Essie to Swansea for Christmas shopping. The shops were crowded. There was no room on the ...

1936

by Grafton Maggs

... Our old shop-keepers knew their business ... such as Lyons and Walls gradually encroached upon the market and most shops began to retail their .


1930-2010

by Doreen Peregrine, née Harris

Doreen was born in Village Lane in 1923 and after recording her immediate surroundings, takes a fascinating journey around the local shops at Southend and Newton Road. Her interesting memories, sometimes include sad details concerning those who owned or were employed, there from the 1930s to today,

1914-1960

John Powell


... Kemp's was a fascinating shop, which sold everything one needed from soft ... The row of shops began with Lowthers Pharmacy and led to A. E. Kemp ...

1930s

by Grafton Maggs

The Vic, like most back street pubs was strategically placed at a confluence of small side streets, every corner having a shop. Opposite on Westbourne Place ...

by Sylvia Bagley

In our basement was a huge printing press; the shop, C.E. Tuckers, was at ground level and behind it there was a second print-room. Above, were our living ...

1906-1960

by Carol Powell


... John as Post Office Clerks, with his wife, Elizabeth, running the shop alongside ... 13, Alderwood Road, West Cross, one of a brand new row of shops ...

1900-1930

By John Powell

On the seaward side of the The Dunns, trading at no. 2 wa John Eley, butcher; at no. 4 was Sam Harris, barber; at no 6 was Lloyds Bank, at no. 8 was Tucker's Mumbles Press Offices; at no. 10 was Johnson Dyers Ltd. and at no. 14 was William John, tobacconists.

By Wendy Stiddard

Her father, Arthur, had run the business in the early 1930s and that he was a gifted mechanic and ‘he could do anything with a car engine.'

1930s

by Malcolm Snell

Mrs Rowlands could send Johny Davies, the Chip shop, into howls of laughter when she mis-pronounced “Rissoles and Chips”. There were the Scotts, the ...

1930s

by Woodrow Honey

When I was a schoolboy in Mumbles, aged 10, I became a 'lather-boy' for Ron Twomey, in his Barber shop at the corner of Queen's Road and Oakland Road, ...

1930s

by Peter Howell

Between St. Peter's and Paraclete, no more than an easy five minutes' walk apart, there was a primary school, a chemist, two grocery shops, a butcher and a ...

1920s

by Carol Powell

This is his story as told to me, of his days in the Grocery trade, long before the advent of supermarkets, automatic tills, credit cards and internet shopping.

1920s

by Elaine Symmons

Shopping days were Tuesdays and Fridays when Mum went to Fulford's in Cornwall Place for her fruit and vegetables and Rogers' or Michael's on The Parade ...

Thomas & Co, Draper, The Dunns

by Joan Jones

Mr. Treharne’s, the butcher - Jones, the baker (Covelli’s) -Kemp’s was a fascinating shop - Thomas’s, where the Co-op is now, had a wonderful staircase, which branched out into two to reach the first floor.

1910-1925

By Carol Powell

In the 1920s, Joan Edwards Jones (née Marshall) enjoyed visiting the grocer's shop run by two brothers, Charlie and Jimmy George. She described that 'At one ...

1910-1920

by Esther May Flowers Edwards

... and someone had the bright idea of opening houses to make tea-shops for the ... was a little old inn; there was a front parlour and a shop, a small ...

1914

by Olive Gluyas
née Whale

The grocer's was Taylor's down by The Dunns and the shop assistants gave me biscuits and prunes to eat . . .

by Carol Powell

Mrs. Elizabeth Jones ran the wool shop on the left of the building. The shops further up that side of Newton Road had yet to be built. M A Clare.

1901-1910

Let us take a look around the shops in Mumbles

before the Great War, before the days of supermarkets,

enterprise zones and on-line shopping . . . .

by Carol Powell MA

... 2,500 in the previous fifty years. The Dunns in the 1890s with Eley's butcher's shop on the left. Close on one hundred and ...

by Olivia Hughes and Alun Bevan

100 years since two young men sought refuge in Britain to start a new life. Now both their families have assimilated into the new society and become Welsh.!!

William Engelbert and Edith Ellen KLEISER

'Billy Howell’s tea shop nestling on the beach'

Howell's Tea Rooms -

A postcard from Giorgio Tortorella, from his maternal grandparents collection, who visited Wales in the 1930s

This postcard shows “Billy Howell’s tea shop nestling on the beach”, as referenced in the poem

When Mumbles was ‘The Mumbles’


a poem by Cyril Gwynn

When Billy Howell’s tea shop nestling on the beach,

Was washed in each sou’wester by the tide,

When Mabel Higgs had donkeys on Langland’s sandy reach,

And used to charge a penny for a ride.


Yes, Mumbles was The Mumbles but twenty years ago.

Now paving stones have covered up the furrough,

And Mumbles isn’t Mumbles, for I would have you know,

‘Tis ‘Oystermouth’, a section of ‘The Borough’.


An extract from The Gower Yarns of Cyril Gwynn
published by the Gower Society
Harborne Tea Rooms, another postcard sent by Giorgio Tortorella

A modern view and It is now the Red Cafe

From Google Street View

Photos from the album

Shopping on Newton Road, c.1950
Cowley Newsagents & Toy Shop, with Myra Evans

1940-1960

edited by Carol Powell

.. . . I do my Christmas shopping ... and macaroons from Pressdee's baker shop and cans ... bustling village back home, 'shops are decorating ...