There can be few more poignant reminders of mortality than shops. Pubs are different. When I first came to Beverley in 1964, Nellie's, The Push, The King's Head and The Royal Standard were all in business. They still are. But it's not difficult to list a multitude of shops that have departed this life in the past forty years, and no doubt readers will come up with many more. Three notable disappearances come straight to mind: Brooke in Butcher Row, Andy's Records in Saturday Market, Robert Gail in North Bar Within. Some retailers such as Prescott's (where time stands still) seem to have been there since time began, but in the world of shopping transience rules.

Take food shops. Remember that outstation of grocery in New Walk? Or Wright's in Westwood Road, whose oven baked the best bread in town? The delicatessen in Cross Street? And what of the rubicund Mr Baggs of Toll Gavel, with his ever-helpful assistant Bobby Carling? Whatever happened to that emblem of Beverley, Burgess's, now so forlornly disused? Gone is Peter Robinson's butcher shop, and Peck's neighbouring fish-and-chippery in Butcher Row. And wasn't there a mustachioed butcher in Sow Hill? Then Saturday Market had Field's Café, Gee's ['What Good Fish!], the Rambla Bakery, a minuscule fruit and veg shop, and, till not so very long ago, Fletcher's, purveyors of wondrous bacon sandwiches. With the departure of Good and Fresh, Beverley lost its only remaining greengrocer, and that little tobacconist close by abruptly disappeared from view.

Kitchenware: a luxurious emporium, resplendent with gleaming copper pans, came and went in North Bar Without. So too did a classy store in Wednesday Market, and Christian's (of London, Paris, New York and Beverley) didn't long survive the transfer from Flemingate to North Bar Within.

Clothes: The legendary Brown's of Beverley, where I really was given a glass of sherry by Mr. Brown! Ringrose ['Noted for Farm Boots'], with its suddenly fashionable agricultural labourers' shirts. Gordon Clarke, transplanted from 'Under the City Hall' to North Bar Without. Greenwood's in Toll Gavel; the shoe shop at the junction of Toll Gavel and Old Walkergate; the sheepskin shop in North Bar Within, with the café upstairs; Silks in St. Mary's Court; Stefanel at the corner of Well Lane and Butcher Row.

Bookdealers: Gone: the Owl and the Beaver, that paradise for children (and their Mums and Dads); Alex Alec-Smith in Highgate; the second-hand bookshop run by young Hull University teachers in North Bar Within; the remainder shop in Saturday Market; the delightfully disordered predecessor to what became the Beverley Bookshop; the Minster Garage Bookshop in Eastgate.

Art and Antiques: That memorable showroom in the mock-medieval mansion just outside the North Bar. Artlynk in Wednesday Market, a treasury of maps and pictures. The Ladygate Gallery on the corner of Hengate. The antique shop on the corner of Ladygate and Sow Hill. Hawley's, tucked away down the snicket off North Bar Within.

General Stores: Schofield's, the pride of Toll Gavel, now leaving behind just a memory of its crowded bustle. Green's of Saturday Market, once prominent in a mid-Victorian print, now likewise lost to sight.

Sub-Post Offices: the branch in North Bar Within, run by the genial Mr Scruton, and the office in Westwood Road, last manned by the equally cheerful Mr Loft.

Sports Shops: Akrill of Saturday Market, by appointment to the huntin', shootin', fishin' community of the old East Riding, and Bromby of Hengate.

And the rest. Buttons and Bows and its short-lived successor in Sow Hill, and the nearby Petty's Toy Shop. The Pottage Brothers' ironmongeries in Cross Street and Toll Gavel. The barber shops in North Bar Within and Wednesday Market. The leather shop in North Bar Within, owned by the Italian image of a Renaissance prince. Field's Chemist's in North Bar Within, with its magnificent bulbous vials, its iron stanchions and its gilt-lettered mahogany drawers. And Jumper must once have been a pharmacy, with the snakes of Aesculapius twined round its door pillars. Lastly, that extraordinary pet food shop at the Saturday Market end of Ladygate.

So passed the shops of yesteryear. But let's not end on a note of mournful nostalgia. Jaeger has filled the void left by Andy's Records, Vintage Living has replaced Robert Gail, M & S Simply Food took over from Fletcher's. In Butcher Row the Cut Price Bookstore moved in when Good and Fresh left the scene. Beverley evolves, and decades on from now, perhaps, someone else will be looking back with affection on the vanished traders who once were there in 2004.
John Major
February 2004

P.S.
In the year since this piece was written, more casualties must be recorded on the war memorial. Saddest of all to a bibliophile like me, the Beverley Bookshop, always well-stocked and brilliantly efficient. And its neighbours in Butcher Row: Pastiche, 100% Contemporary, Stuff, and the cheap and cheerful successor to Brooke.
Kwiksave and the Coal House (ex-Akrill's) in Saturday Market; Jim Bell Sports in North Bar Within; the Toy Gallery and the Carpet Warehouse in Lairgate; Webster's Cookshop in Sow Hill.
All gone but not forgotten!
J.M.
March 2005