Compiled by Colin Sully
In the year 2000 residents in The Lee compiled a series of reports on events, people and activities and produced ‘The Lee Millennium Diary’. In the fourth of a series of articles we revisit one of the stories from that year and provide an update (or in this case the precursors).
The Old ShopPat Pidgeon writes in the Millennium Diary in February 2000:
“Records show that a ‘beer house license’ was granted here in 1868 to Mrs Sophia Pearce (her husband Israel being shown in the census of 1881 as a ‘straw plait dealer’) and it was carried on by the female line of the Pearce family until the 1970s.
We opened our off-licence in 1983 after converting an adjoining lean-to shed. When the former Lee Common Post Office closed (now Floral Cottage) the Post
Office business was transferred
here in February 1997.” Pat Pidgeon in The Old Shop
Some earlier incarnations
Oxford Street has always had a shop... or two... or three...
Here are some pictures of premises that provided earlier opportunities for
local retail therapy (pictures by permission of the Buckinghamshire County
Museum).The first picture is of what was once Lee Common Post Office (also known as Porretts stores and now Floral Cottage), which was run for many years by John and Karel Lewis.
The second picture from
the Buckinghamshire County Museum is the former Holloway Stores, also in
Oxford Street next to the Bugle; once upon a time a grocery shop.Shop elsewhere
In 2004, Pat Pidgeon decided it was finally time to retire and so end the long lineage of Oxford Street shops.
This of course precipitated initially the debate and eventually the reality of The Lee Community Shop… but that’s a whole different story and certainly couldn’t possibly have been envisaged in 2000.