Bury St Edmunds, Cornhill c.1950

Photo ref: B258001

More about this scene

On the left is Everard's Hotel with a Greene King dray outside. The pub had become the Woolpack in 1780 and Everard's in 1845. It closed in 1987, and was replaced by Pizza Hut. Woolhall Street, beyond Everard's, marks the site of the medieval market Toll House and the later Wool Hall, which was demolished to create the street. The three-storey building beyond was earlier the Bell Temperance Hotel. The whole range, including the Eastern Electricity showroom with the clock, was demolished and rebuilt in 1974-75 with an identical façade. The next building with the central pediment was Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies, which became Sainsbury's Supermarket between 1960 and 1987, a shopping precinct and is now Iceland. In the mid-Victorian period this was Fenton's Old Curiosity Shop, a second-hand shop taking its name from Dickens's novel, and looking like Steptoe's living room. The white-fronted building is the 1933 Burtons, with a billiard hall upstairs. The building replaced the Three Kings, and its side entrance still survives. The whole length from Eastern Electricity up to but excluding Burtons was demolished in the 1970s, and Central Walk was created to link with the Cattle Market. A nice survival is the façade of Hunter and Oliver's, the wine merchants, which was incorporated into the front of the new Boots in 1977.

An extract from Bury St Edmunds Town and City Memories.