Hadleigh Shops 1939 to 1955

The Archive has been gathering information over the last year to be able to launch a new project looking at the old shops in Hadleigh during the Second World War and before the town was substantially redeveloped in the 1960s.

We have been helped by a number of people who have lived in Hadleigh for most of their lives, including that period. Maureen Hume and her friends have been casting their minds back to their childhood and helping identify the shop names and where they were located.

The Archive has also gathered a number of photographs from various sources, including some which can already be found in separate articles on this website, but we are lacking photographs of many of the shops during that period.

If you have any family photos that might fill the gaps, please either send digital copies which we may use, by email to admin@hadleighhistory.org.uk or contact us and arrange for us to scan your photos for you. We will, of course, send you a digital copy and credit them to you and/or the photographer whenever we use them.

We hope to use them in exhibitions over the next 2 years to eventually fill in all the gaps and, in future, to create an article on each premises showing their changing use over the years.

Sometimes it is not clear from a submitted photograph exactly where a shop was and your help could be invaluable in pinning down the location. For example, Eamonn Burnell says that his grandfather Scrivens had a cycle and motorcycle shop in Hadleigh high street and the photograph with this article may be the shop in question.

It appears to be number 320. Could this be 320 London Road Hadleigh? Please get in touch if you know the answer to this one, by email or by submitting a comment on this article.

Thanks for all your help.

The Archive Editors