Toby's store & Friar Lane


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I am 73 yrs old and I started work at Toby's age 15 on may 9th 1957 I knew Joan Peck very well although she started a lot later than me .I worked there till June 1965 when I left to have my first b

Gee Hi Limey, I found a romantic little history of Tobys in a Civic Soc. book, a plumber bloke called Hartley had a bathware shop top of Friar lane, married a girl called Florence who'd been a manager

John Jeffcoate Ross Sergeant was a partner in my accountancy firm of Hubbart Durose and Pain and I always understood that he was related to the pharmacist. We occupied premises to the rear of the Coun

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Never seen this one before, but it's the closest I've seen to a photo of Toby's.

I've seen this photograph before, because the middleaged lady with the walking stick and the shopping basket was my hubbies, great aunty Lizzie........She recognised herself in the local newspaper and wrote to them, was sent the photograph.................

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I only went into Toby's once, I did not like the store, I thought it was old fashioned...........I used to like their Royal Albert China and when I married, my mother-in-law, who was a bit posh, bought me the tea service, it was 1970 and cost 25/-.........Every year after that for presants I had an addition until I had almost the entire set, still have it today, still love it, but hardly ever use it now...........

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I think I must be the only person on here who never set foot in Tobys. As a kid I hardly ever ventured further than the big Co-op, as 1. our bus terminated behind there, and 2. mam hated the town so we never wandered around it. I use to look in Tobys window as a teen but can only remember fancy china etc displayed in there. I am amazed to read it was a department store selling soap powder, make up etc.

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I loved going into Jessops when it was on King street.....remember getting school uniform there and my mum buying cosmetics....( she still goes to the Estée Lauder counter, but now it's John Lewis in the viccie )

The cafe in the king street store was amazing......cream cakes on a tiered cake stand !!!!!......1 shilling 4 pence, sooo funny what you can remember.

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We only went into Toby's maybe a couple of times, I think it was an expensive shop and we just didn't have that sort of money in those days. Didn't it later become a antiques emporium similar to the Top Hat on Derby Road?

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I've just had a thought relating to Toby's, in my loft some where Ive got some Beswick horses brought from Royal Doulton in Tobys i also have a number of Toby jugs and charactor jugs. But Ive got one Toby Jug that actually says underneath it Toby's department store .these were not sold in my time so they were sold before 1957 infact when I first started in 57 I remember there were some photos in the canteen taken 2 or 3 years before celebrating Toby's being open 25 yrs the Toby jugs could have been made and sold to celebrate that but not defiantly sure , it could have been when they originally opened . When Tobys first opened it was just a small china shop further up friar lane .in fact I used to have a magazine think it was called Topic and in it was a big write up about Tobys telling you how it started etc. .

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Gee Hi Limey, I found a romantic little history of Tobys in a Civic Soc. book, a plumber bloke called Hartley had a bathware shop top of Friar lane, married a girl called Florence who'd been a manager in a posh china shop, to please her he spent big with an architect and built her a shop to sell nice things (and make money) she called it Tobys, that being his nickname as a lad. They both did well didn't they? Even more romance (for the ladies) the shop was built on the site of Dorothy Vernons cottage as was before she eloped with Lord John Manners. --- and another vague element, Hartley was a practical man with a wife who wanted posh, reminds me a bit of Jesse Boot. are you bored yet? yes the building is vernon House.

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I suppose Nottingham's claim to fame for shop's still with us is

wait for it!!!

Boots and Hopewells. well done to both store's although I think Boots now belongs to our German friends.

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Bit of Toby's history . Article on the death of the founder James Hartley in the N.E.P. 30th Oct. 1937

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And a list of mourners at the funeral a few days later......may jog a few memories

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Many years ago, I worked for Rotheras, solicitors, on Friar Lane, just further up from Toby's. I've been looking at the photos in the Toby's thread and Friary Chambers can just about be seen on the extreme margin of some of them.  However, Friary Chambers was only part of Rotheras' Offices. There was an archway which led through to a very down at heel but beautiful Georgian house which also housed Rotheras' offices. Some philistine had built a 'bridge' at first floor level, linking the house with Friary Chambers.

 

The house was fascinating and always reminded me of the description in Dickens' A Christmas Carol of Scrooge's abode: that it must have run in there when it was a very young house and forgotten the way out!

 

At the time, I was clerk to Peter Howard Mellors who was the Senior Partner. A wonderful chap who had read history at Cambridge and whose knowledge of Nottingham's past was phenomenal.

 

I've never forgotten the house and often wished I'd taken photos of it. It was so tucked away that it won't appear on any Friar Lane shots.

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43 minutes ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Many years ago, I worked for Rotheras, solicitors, on Friar Lane, just further up from Toby's. I've been looking at the photos in the Toby's thread and Friary Chambers can just about be seen on the extreme margin of some of them.  However, Friary Chambers was only part of Rotheras' Offices. There was an archway which led through to a very down at heel but beautiful Georgian house which also housed Rotheras' offices. Some philistine had built a 'bridge' at first floor level, linking the house with Friary Chambers.

 

Is it this place?

friar_zpss2s3tsf4.jpg

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I think it must be, Cliff Ton, although I've never seen it from that angle before and it looks as though it may have been altered. I always used to wonder what Friar Lane looked like when that house was built, before the present frontages arrived. I suspect someone may have wrecked it still further since Rotheras left!

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Nice shot of the Roebuck at top right. The bay window is the upstairs roof terrace where the smokers go.

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44 minutes ago, Jill Sparrow said:

 I always used to wonder what Friar Lane looked like  before the present frontages arrived. 

 

Quite different.

This was the scene before the building of the ugly block at the top. (The building in the centre is still there, on the corner of Maid Marian Way).

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Same thing looking down towards the Market Square.

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Before Friar Lane was widened in the mid 20s, looking towards the Square. Toby's would be approximately where the "Plumbers" building is.

friar%20lane1_zpsf2pyiq8x.jpg

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