Local shops or beer offs that you remember


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It would make a good board game...match the pub/business/road etc with Ben's ex girlfriend. There could be a pile of cards with the names of Ben's lady friends and the board could be marked with vario

Tom Turner's on Front Street, Arnold. Classic hardware shop on Arnold's main shopping thoroughfare that began trading in 1912 (pictured below in 1920). The type of shop that you could go and buy a co

The 'corner shop' near our yard on Hawthorne Street was Sal Hallam`s - later run by her daughter Mary. I remember when I was little my slightly older cousin taught me a little song and she said I shou

Beer off corner of Briar Street and Bosworth Road Meadows, Annie Keeling ran it.

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#20 me too Dave.

Anyone remember the beer-off on the corner of Peel Street..opposite corner to Fon a car base? It had a huge ornate brass till on the counter..sold you Armadillo sherry/stripper in milk bottles!!

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Only ever went in one beer-off and that was at the top of Bailey Street, when staying with my grandparents on Marlow Ave. Went to get her beer for her, taking a jug with me. I'd be 8, don't think it would be allowed nowadays! No beer offs around the council estates, but I'm sure the Cocked Hat had one, a little room on the left of the pub? Val?

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Kath

Cocked Hat had a small room as you said where mainly housewives used to get their jugs filled. (not a euphemism)

I think but not sure, that Len Orchard's at Broxtowe shops, Bradfield Road end might have sold draught beer as well.

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That small room in the Cocked Hat, sold among other things, bars of chocolate and I'd get a Mars Bar for thrupence, and it was way bigger than they are now.

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Highbury Vale, bottom of Saxondale Drive - Westwoods newsagents, Cook's chippy, Beecroft greengrocers, Clarkes jewellers (of Kenneth Clarke MP), Dainty's barbers, Raithby's butchers, Co-op, and one or two I can't remember, including the chemist on the corner of Highbury Avenue. Also under the bridge, on Vernon Road, Stirlands post office, Lees and Palmers chippies, and a bike shop further down.

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True KatyJay the little room on the left was the off sales where they used to fit jugs up with ale to take home and they often had a crafty one before they went home and it was mostly women,the men were all in the public bar we used to sell a lot of mild in those days. Kids used to come in for chocolate I used to grab a bar on my way to school

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The John Barleycorn had a Jug and Bottle. The barmaid used to put a big funnel into the top of a narrow-neck bottle to fill it. The store on the corner of Hall Street, Sherwood had a beer-off. When we lived on Hall Street I was in there once and they had the radio on playing this wonderful music. When I got served I rushed back into the house, switched the radio on and caught the end of the music and heard what it was called. Next day went down town and bought it. I have since put it on the forum - The Creed (I Believe) by the Russian Metropolitan Choir of Paris. When a piece of music grabs you, go out of your way to own it.

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I remember a shop on corner of Cambridge Street who had some sort of contraption on the counter to make children's drinks for next to nothing - stuff tasted vile though!!! A house, a couple of doors up, did children's haircuts on a Saturday if they had a bowl the right size!!!

Best wishes

Peter

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This is Orford Avenue on Clifton. The shop at the far end on the right was an off-licence and grocery store and I've been in it hundreds of times when I was younger. The thing I most remember about it was the sign above the door about "licensed to sell alcohol for consumption etc" because the name on the sign was unusual. The shop owner was a man named Alva Ballard Bates, and to this day I've never known anyone else called Alva.

chip-1.jpg

Cliff Ton, when I first saw this picture I thought it was the shops on Ambergate Rd on the Beechdale Estate. It looks identical.

My mum used to shop there in the late 40s and through into the 50s. The Beeroff was run by an elderly bloke called Oliver and my dad used to do a soda syphon swap there at Christmas. There was also a Co-Op around the corner on Ranmere Rd with a Chemist's attached. The Co-op has gone now. The Co-Op used to sell biscuits all neatly stacked in square tins with glass lids. They were weighed out into paper bags. I always wanted the fig rolls but my mum would never buy them. I think she was worried they would give me the trots.

In adulthood fig rolls have become my favourite biscuit and the trots have never been a problem lol

Can you find and post a pic of Ambergate shops please Cliff Ton?

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I can see what you mean about Ambergate Road looking similar. Probably designed by the same person who laid out Clifton in the early 50s. Today Ambergate looks like this:

ambergate.jpg

Slightly more unusual is this from Britain from Above, in 1949. Beechdale Estate being built, with the Ambergate Road shops standing out in the centre as the only thing higher than a bungalow.

beechdale.jpg

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Thanks Cliff Ton.

I remember the Ambergate Rd shops having metal framed windows just like the Orford Ave ones. Quite Deco really.

The aerial shot is excellent. Thanks for posting it.

A bit further to the right and you would be able to see my old school Beechdale Primary (mainly wooden huts) which was a former Ack Ack gun enplacement until the end of WWII.

Can you weave your magic Cliff Ton?

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I Remember the shops on Meadow Lane Circa 1960 Mrs Sprays sweet shop Between Daleside Rd and Moorland St, Jack Goys fish and chip shop, Burgess Post Office / newsagents, Godfreys Butchers and Stantons sweet shop between Brand St and Grainger St. Hicklings grocers, Cumberpatches greengrocers and the beer off on the corner of Holme St run by Job Whysall. further along between Holme St and Meadow grove was Fred Frosts grocers .

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A bit further to the right and you would be able to see my old school Beechdale Primary (mainly wooden huts) which was a former Ack Ack gun enplacement until the end of WWII.

Is this it ? As the place no longer exists I'm not sure what I'm looking for. This looks a bit like a wooden-hut school and it's right on the edge of the photo.

beechdale_1.jpg

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That's it exactly. Many thanks Cliff Ton it's an amazing view of my old school.

I attended Beechdale Primary School from 1955-61. It closed a year or two later.

The site is now a senior citizens complex called Foxton Gardens and is clearly visible on the satellite section of Google Maps.

The original single story prefabs that feature in the shot had only just been errected. I lived on Elstree Drive but many of my school pals lived in those prefabs.

Thanks again.

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Not a shop I remember because we're talking about early 1900s but my Great-grandmother had a 'Beer-off' in Long Eaton. No idea where it was but have some postcards that were sent there and the address is just ' Beer-off, Long Eaton' so I assume it was the only one there. For the many years we lived down south we never called a shop selling booze a Beer-off, and to us it's still an Off-licence.

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The great north - south divide eh Lizzie! It's amazing how language changes to suit different areas.

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I knew many in Nottm who called them Off-Licenses too, so it's not really a north south thingy, could be what part of Nottm our parents were from.

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Could well be.

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When I think about it, where we lived just off Westdale Lane in Mapperley, I had the following within two minutes walk:

Watsons newsagents and sweetshop

Windales bakery

Haslam's greengrocers

Plus a Shippos beer-off, Wendy's toy shop, a butchers, Fearn's for building and DIY stuff, a hairdressers, and Mary Bellamy fashions for my mum's clothes.

The Post Office was five minutes walk.

If my mum wanted fresh fish, I was made to walk all the way up to Mapperley top.

Now, all that there is around there is a Bargain Booze, a pharmacy, a nail salon, and a place that sells mobile radio/phones. But Fearn's is still there, somehow.

Such is progress.

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At the top of Eaton Street in Mapperley almost opposite the Methodist church there used to be one runs by Pakistanis (its since been made into a house). It was funny because the name of the shop, in big letters on the sign, was "D.R. Sohal".

Geddit?

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In Nottm I recall 'Beer Off' and 'Off-Sales'. I always remember that my paternal Grandma, Doris Berresford had one of those sloping 'Nib-bits' jars on the counter of the 'Beer-Off' at the Bestwood Hotel in Bestwood Colliery Village.

Up here in Scouserside, they tend to call it the 'Outdoor'. The separate 'Beer-off' is generally known as the 'offy', though all of these terms are now redundant.

Col

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