Local History Memories of Market Street By Roderick Martin


THIS mid-1950s Tavistock postcard shows a view looking up Market Street towards the railway viaduct just before some of the buildings on the east side of the street were demolished to make way for the present Co-operative store.


The card was published by Kenneth E. Ruth of


Ashburton. It is a bit of a puzzle why he thought Market Street in Tavistock with its boarded-up shops awaiting demolition would make a good postcard scene, but from a local history viewpoint it is a fantastic record of what has been lost.


Hall but they found to their dismay that there was little public support for any moves to exclude the Co-operative from the town. Once again the public had expressed their liking for a cheap price. Initially the Co-operative in Tavistock enjoyed some popularity but in the longer term the Society failed to have the devastating commercial impact many of its opponents feared. Getting back to Market Street I


Prior to 1900 this end of the street


was known as Higher Market Street but after this date the ‘Higher’ seems to have been dropped. As its name suggests it was once part of the busy produce market area located around Bank Square. Higher Market Street started to become a trading backwater after the 1860 Pannier Market was built and the Bedford Estate relocated the various produce markets into it. Some commercial salvation came in 1905 with the arrival of the Tavistock and District Co-operative Society whose successors have remained the principal traders in the street. The Society managed its shops by a local committee and customers who joined the Society became shareholders entitled to a dividend from any profits.


Just as our generation


debates the possible arrival of yet another supermarket and its affect on the town traders, the proposed Co-operative was the subject of a very similar local debate during the early years of the twentieth century. Nationally the Co-operative movement had enormous social


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impact and had been successful in many areas, so understandably there was a fear that the Society would be able to undercut the established shops in


Tavistock. A number of


shopkeepers formed a Trader’s Defence League to oppose the licensing application with grocer Albert Kennard as chairman, chemist


have tried to put some names to businesses which in the early years of the 20th century occupied these premises. Going up the east side of the street No.10, the first boarded-up shop was formerly William Winter’s drapery store, Manchester House. After his death in 1898 it became Richard N. Stanger’s Drapers and Milliners, but in 1912 Stanger relocated around the corner to Pym Street. It later became Miss Greenfield’s


stationery shop. Next door (also No.10) the second boarded-up shop was once the White & Co. wine and spirit store.


1912 these premises became a sweet shop run by Alice Williams assisted by her son Ronald.


‘Woodbines’ for 2d per pack, four chews for 1d, bullseyes, sweet cigarettes, small toys and nick-nacky things.


Richard Doble as vice chairman, and grocer Simeon Raymont as secretary. A key argument by the League was that the established shopkeepers spent their profits in the town, whereas the Co-operative being a national business would take its profit out of the town. A public meeting was organised by the League in the Town


Nos. 11 and 12 were once a grocer’s shop - Henry Penny. Nos. 13 and 14 - Co-operative premises including butcher’s counter and bakery, also stores. No. 15 was also a butcher’s shop -


William Coyle. In the far distance, on the corner of Madge Lane and King Street, at 16 King Street, was Harold Pengelly’s fish and chip shop. Coming back down the west side of the street the businesses were as follows:


They sold After newsagent and


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