The Village Shop
The shop is one of the older buildings in The Street, certainly parts of it are from the 18th century or perhaps earlier. It was originally a bakery as well. Charles Webb was the baker and grocer, certainly from 1844. In April 1871 his son James was missing for four days before being found unconscious in the river at Twyford. He was resuscitated and charged with attempting suicide. Despite that when his father retired he took over the business and ran it for about 20 years. James remained unmarried and died in February 1901 after which Frederick Pocock became the grocer and baker. After he died in 1915 his widow Alice carried on running the shop single-handedly until at least 1921. Although her younger son Albert was still living with her then he was employed as a motor engineer at Vincents garage in Reading. By 1929 Mr and Mrs Gosling kept the shop and continued to do so through the 1950s and 60s.
This view of The Street, with the shop on the right, is from a postcard that was sent through the post in 1903 so it is probably Mrs Pocock and her elder son Frederick Charles standing at the gate.
Bread was baked at the village shop, probably until World War 2 as Mr Gosling is described as a “Master Baker” in the 1939 Register. After the war Percy Gundry supplied bread with a horse and cart and fresh fish was provided by Mr Collins with his motor van. There was even for a period a fish and chip van that called once a week.
For the main grocery shopping it was necessary to go further afield but Mr Carter who ran the grocer’s in Theale High Street would deliver weekly orders, which could be telephoned through to the shop. In the pandemic of 2020 the then shopkeepers Andy and Laura Allen provided a vital lifeline for many in the village.
Until 1893 villagers could get milk from Chalkpit Farm but unless someone in the house worked at the farm this meant a walk there and back every day in all weathers, usually a task for the children. In 1893 Mr Palmer, the recently-arrived farm bailiff, procured a milk cart which meant that the milk was delivered along The Street instead. Householders were warned that the success of the project depended on the milk boy not being kept waiting or “allured” away from his cart to take milk to the door; they were also expected to have the correct money ready and not require change, nor to ask him for more milk than their usual daily requirement.
There was for a time also a shoemaker’s shop in the village just up the road from the bakery in another one of the old houses (number 5) where Aaron Grey was the shoemaker for more than 40 years until his death in 1883. In the previous century both, James Taylour and William Giles were also shoemakers, possibly at No 5 too for it is described as a shop in one of the later censuses.
The picture below is from the 1950s when the shop was kept by Mr and Mrs Gosling.
