VILLAGE
shops in the old days were more like supermarkets. The shop further up
the hill in Wethersfield’s High Street was in later days known as
the Top Shop
For many years the shop was run by the Edwards family and it was a very
comprehensive business. On a bill head it says Mr F W Edwards was a grocer,
tea dealer and general draper. He was a coal, corn, flour, meal and pollard
merchant. He sold Peek Frean's biscuits, china, glass, earthenware, pickles,
sauces, etc. And, finally, ready-made clothes, boots, shoes and millinery.
At one early
meeting of Wethersfield Local History group older members recalled the
Top Shop.
Jack Metson:
There was this shop here, Edwards' as it was then. They used to sell everything
under the sun. From as long as I can remember until...
The Top Shop sold everything
in the days of F W Edwards
Jack Metson: They sold everything, coal, coke, oil, salt . They used to have the salt come in blocks then about nine or 12 ins square and cut them up into pieces and wrap them up in newspaper and that's how we used to buy salt.
Stan Smith: It cost three ha'pence.
Jack Metson: A whole slab for three ha'pence (one and a half new pence)
Jack Tillbrook: Freddy, your Dad sold coal nearly up to the fifties, didn't he? I can remember him bringing coal round.
Jack Metson: Coal and oil, that's the only way we got it. They used to cart it from Hedingham station at that time.
Stan Smith: With two horses and a van.
Mrs Brownfield who, with her husband Harry, kept the Top Shop after Mr Reynold's days had her own memories: We lived in Virginia House (adjoining the shop) from 1968-76. We were there just over eight years.
We had retired before we came there. We took on shopkeeping as a hobby, until our age crept up on us.
It was a general grocers. Harry used to cut all his own bacon up then, we used to get it from the Dunmow Flitch company. They used to bring it in on their shoulders. We had the old bacon machine.
Coal and oil were staple fare for customers at F& S Reynolds
When we first got there after Mr Reynolds we increased trade. He wouldn't sell this and he wouldn't sell that. He wouldn't sell tights and stockings and things like that but we had a good trade with them. But up in one of the old stockrooms we found a lot of Longjohns and old boots.
We were very fond of the shop and everybody seemed to get on with us and my husband was well liked. He went all round the area and would see to the old ladies’ oil stoves for them.
We kept oil in the tanks round the back. We did very well with the oil in those days. You used to go down with your can and turn the tap on and then come up with it. We had a lot of oil.