Unlocking Stourport's Past

16 Bridge Street


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Reminiscences of 16 Bridge Street between the wars

My mother was the youngest of an Amphlett family of five, the eldest being her sister Ellen who like the rest were born at Worcester; Ellen was born in 1873. How she met her husband John Percy Underhill I do not know.

There is a lovely improbable legend about him, how he stowed away on a coal barge and ran away to Stourport and how he started his bakery business by baking bread in a back kitchen and hawking it round the streets in a basket on his arm.

My earliest recollections of Stourport were when I must have been about ten, about 1930. Owens Buses left the 'Paul Pry' in the Butts at Worcester and deposited us at York Street. Just a few minutes walk from No 16.

In those days a child was meant to be seen and not heard and I remember sitting for what seemed like hours in the sitting room behind the shop, a room crowded and dark with heavy highly polished Victorian furniture. I was finally released to go and explore the bakery and yard with the instructions not to get in anyone's way. There were three marvellous places that stand out in my memory: The bakehouse itself with its lovely smell of newly baked bread, the confectioners den with usually a pan of icing on the stove (and if the Fecky I was not looking one could dip a finger in) and then of course the stables.

This I think was my favourite place; if you opened the door and crept in the horses seemed huge monsters. There they stood gazing with large patient eyes at the small boy wondering why he had come to disturb their peace. The only movement they made was to shift their weight from one rested hoof to another.

The shop as you know stands on the corner of Raven Street. Behind the shop was a Passage through to the covered yard and off this passage and immediately behind the shop was the living room. Beyond that was the bakehouse building fronting on to Raven Street with the flour loft over it. Then came double doors to the street and beyond that was a large two¬ storey building. If I remember correctly on the ground floor was a large dining room where at one time lunches were served, empty except for chairs and tables stacked up. Along here was also the confectioners den where anything from iced buns to birthday cakes were finished off, sometimes even a wedding cake.

On the first floor was the Assembly Room where at one time my mother ran dances. I am hazy at what date this must have been, perhaps the early days of the First World War. (The writer sends a ticket for one of her 'Long Nights' - Dancing 7.30 till 1 Tickets 1/6 inclusive.) Also on this floor was the office, the nerve hub of the business at the time of my visits run by cousin May.

Between this building and the wall of the property next door was a large covered area where the bakery vans were kept. The stables were along this far wall opposite the yard gates.Uncle Jack and Aunt Nell as I always knew them had two children, my cousins. Harald was fifteen years older than I and May twenty years. May at one time rode a motorcycle but gave it up after a nasty accident. This was before the days of foot change and the gearlever mounted on the petrol tank ran into her thigh. At the time of our visits they were both employed in the business, Harry as a master baker.

Cousin Harry liked to escape the heat of the bakehouse and take out the bread van and I always wanted to go out with him but as they supplied most of the surrounding countryside the vans were out long before mother and I got there. I would see them coming back in the afternoon and I liked to watch the horses unharnessed ('shutting out’ was the correct term). Sometimes a horse was due for a rest and I would go with Harry down to the little meadow at the bottom of Raven Street to turn it out. Sometimes there would be a horse to bring up ready for an early start next day. I think the Civic Centre stands on that little meadow. Some idea of the distances they covered was when they spoke of the long pull up 'Sharrack'. Years later I found this referred to Chadwick Bank, up to the Mitre Oak, quite a pull up for a horse with a fully loaded van, at that time four wheelers.

Uncle Jack died in January 1933. I always remember him as a very hard-working kindly man with a dry sense of humour. I believe he was a very active member of the chapel, possibly Methodists, and a highly respected citizen of the town. Aunt May followed him three years later in January 1936.

K F D
This page researched by David More
This page last updated 28 November 2006

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