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Does anyone remember Melias food shops?

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Hi

 

Was just wondering if anyone remembers Melias Food Shops - the one I knew, back in the 50's was at the junction of Port Mahon/Meadow Street and St Philips Road, diagonally opposite the old chapel

 

Going in there - wonderful smell of fresh food, I think they were mainly butchers but I could be wrong about that - but food not in packets, hence the aroma and i am sure sawdust on the floor

 

That was the only one I knew but some little bell is ringing in my my head saying that they were part of a small chain of shops across the town - or am I wrong? Given the time it was pulled down to start the 'building' of the Ponderosa then it would have been gone around 1960 so its going to need old fogeys like me in their 60's to remember it well I guess

 

---------- Post added 10-02-2016 at 12:41 ----------

 

update to my own post - just searched on picture sheffield (which I should have done first!) and it came up with two shops, other than the one I knew.

 

One at Tinsley - the other in Chapeltown, so I am guessing there were more - and if so - what happened to them?

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Melia's was a national chain of grocers which (along with the Maypole chain) eventually merged with the Home & Colonial Stores - see here. The 1957 Kelly's Directory lists ten branches of Melia's in Sheffield (up from seven in the early 1950s). Here is a scan from the directory. By 1962 the St Philip's Road shop had gone but the 1965 directory shows a branch on Fawcett Street. By 1970 the firm no longer featured in directories, though two Sheffield branches of Maypole survived until 1973

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There was a Melias branch on Crookes, I remember it as being a very old fashioned shop (I suppose they all were then) that sold stuff like loose butter or cheese, cut with a wire and weighed on large shop scales. Mmm

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Elmambo - I was born into a shop just up the road from Melias on St Phillips Road and I can clearly remember my Dad cutting cheese with a cheese wire, patting portions of butter from large blocks and weighing sugar into blue bags.

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I remember a branch of Melias on Sheffield Road at Tinsley when I was a child, Sheffield Road which people who lived in Tinsley will know it always known as "the front" dont know how it came to get that name it seems a bit silly now. Also I am sure there was a Maypole as well, in fact in that row of shops there was every type of shop you needed.

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I used to work for Melias in the late 1950s,I worked at Fawcett Street mainly but sometimes I went to other branches.They were at Darnall, Attercliffe, Chapeltown,Hoyland,Rotherham and even one at Thorne.A terrible company to work for though,I only stayed about a year.

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Remember my grandmother going all the way to Attercliffe in the early 60s to do her shop at the one across from Banners.

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There was a branch of the Melias shops on Cross Street in Woodhouse in the 1960's. It replaced the old "Hunters" grocery shop; that had the marble top counters and all the staff served the customers individually whereas the Melias was a more modern self-service shop with the wire baskets and a checkout counter. This style of shopping took off very quickly; Supermarkets had not arrived yet so on the main streets through the village in about half a mile there were six self service grocery stores including two Co-ops.

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There used to be a Maypole grocery shop and a Meadow grocery shop at Page Hall. They were almost next to one another.

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one at the top of Carbrook street just yards from where i lived,think it ended up as Alls tool shop.

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I also remember a Melias at Tinsley 'on the front' as Kay1 says, not sure if it was a Maypole before that as there was a Maypole store round there at one time....I remember going in with my mum when I was little, but she did most of her grocery shopping then at 'the Stores' which was the B&C Co-op at the end of the row next to Bawtry Road, there was also a Co-op butchers and chemist there. Steels bakers shop, Mr Eales newsagent and Ryves chemist were among other shops we often visited.

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