I noticed that the newsagents in Burncross is up for sale at the moment and it got me thinking about all the old private businesses that were there. From memory:

Newsagent - Jack (JB) and Evelyn Thompson.

Post Office - The Clintons.

Chemist - Mrs Weetch.

The wool shop.

The garage behind the wool shop - Glyn Morris?

Photographers - Dawsons?

Glass works and the bakery that was there originally.

The Vivo / Spar now Costcutter



What . who am I missing? Have you got any stories or memories or them and the people who owned them and worked there?

The wool shop was called Kiddies Klobber (for a while at least) and supplied dozens of local schoolgirls with elastic for french skipping :D

in front of boltons bakery was my families fish & chip shop which is now my home. it belonged to charlie & edna pepper

I didn't know there was a bakery there! But remember Mrs Weetch. Became a general store (Mr Khan), then a cafe, then the property was bought by the next door neigbours.

Was a video shop called Dawson's, which I assume was the photography shop as above.

Used to buy caps for my toy gun from the wool shop!

There is the fruit and veg shop next to the Jet garage, and a privately run mechanic next door.

Brian Dawson ran the photo shop in the late 70s, early 80s. He also worked at Newton Chambers. I seem to recall some people calling him George. I think that was actually his father's name. The folks in Burncross and Thorncliffe struggled with new fangled ideas like people having their own name, when it was easier to call them by another name that was easier to remember.

Was it Mrs Weetch who lived in a big house on Housley Park that is now the church hall? I notice the old shop on Burncross is undergoing a "renovation" to a "remarkably high standard of building work" :suspect:

Edit - I think the house was called INVERTILT or something like that!

Mrs Weetch lived in the big house next to St Johns but I have no idea if it is now the Church Hall. I always remember that she was immaculately turned out with a perfect blonde hairdo.

There was definitely something with names Eater Sundae. My grandparents were the Thompson's at the newsagent (I was the little boy serving while stood on a stool in the 70's). Jack's real name was John Brotherton Thompson, as was his father, and his father, and guess what, his father too!

I always understood that he had his first shop, a wooden hut, on the site of George (?)Dawson's photographers when he was in his mid teens, and he built the current newsagents shop a little later.

Before being in Burncross his father (and later his maiden aunt) had a newsagents shop at High Green.

For now I can't remember the name of the people who had / have the nursery / veg shop next to the garage, but it will come to me. John something maybe?

fannyanny I don't remember the chip shop but I assume that it was in the row opposite the shop? When did it turn back into a house? I have a few old photos and your house might just be on one of them.

Mrs Weetch lived in the big house next to St Johns but I have no idea if it is now the Church Hall. I always remember that she was immaculately turned out with a perfect blonde hairdo.

Did it carry on as a chemists after she died? I seem to remember that it was a nice little cafe for a while in the 90's.

I'm not sure if this will work, but hopefully here are a few photos that might jog memories. For obvious reasons they are all of Jack Thompson outside the various shops that he had.


99 Wortley Road, High Green (http://trees.ancestry.com/f2/file05/objects/4/a/3/54a35e1f-0d90-4d2c-af6d-4cfff7d64add-0.jpg) is Thompson's newsagent in High Green. The A Thompson on the sign is Agnes, JB's maiden aunt who took over when his father died. I'm guessing that this is about 1927 and he's about 14.


Burncross Road (http://trees.ancestry.com/f1/file08/objects/e/c/2/8ec2dcf4-b989-48a8-9c1e-bf1010c249c2-0.jpg) is what I think is the first newsagent shop in Burncross, which became Dawson's. The advertising bilboard has two 1932 films showing at the High Green Cinema - Faithless (Starring Harry Beaumont, Tallulah Bankhead) and Fast Life. Why don't movie stars have names like Tallulah Bankhead any more? :D


311 Burncross Road (http://trees.ancestry.com/f1/file08/objects/0/b/d/80bd66e3-e112-471a-9a80-96e856bfe4e0-0.jpg) (I think). If I am right its taken at the side of the second shop at Burncross Road, between it and the Chemist where the big brick and concrete air raid shelter was later built The row of houses opposite will be where you live fannyanny. It's the 30's again.

The chap on the back of the motorbike might jog a memory. There was a group of young men who were into motorbikes at the time, going to the TT Races and the like. I always understood that some other familiar names like Eric Wadsworth (Chapeltown estate agent) and Eric Stead (Ecclesfield car dealer) were part of that group.


Another one at 311 Burncross Road (http://trees.ancestry.com/f2/file15/objects/6/a/7/f6a75004-581c-4463-b8ba-e456b1ce95ef-0.jpg). Probably in the 50's. The cream and black glass panel front was there until he retired and GT News bought it in the 80's when they extended it and knocked through into the lounge and kitchen that used to be behind. Does anyone remember the jars of sweets that were in the window and on the shelves in the shop?




I hope that they might jog some memories, even if its one of being a paper lad being ticked off by my sometimes grumpy (but still fabulous) grandfather. :)