Based on childhood recollections
of shops in Edmonton, north London in Edwardian times.
The hardware shop / ironmongers in Silver Street Edmonton, early 1900s, provided by Cliff Raven, courtesy of Enfield Local Studies and Archives. Note the tin baths hanging up that would have been used on washdays. Larger versions would have been used for bathing. Detail of a larger photo on old Edmonton page.
The hardware shop or ironmongers was always known as the oil shop in our family. It was owned by Mr Bryant and was on the corner of Sheldon Road and Silver Street. It sold all sorts of household goods but it was for oil (actually paraffin) that my mother mostly used it. She would have to take a special can with a long spout along and buy the oil by the pint.
I particularly remember the firewood, which was stacked against the counter like a small wall. The sticks were about eight inches long and tied bundles.
The gas mantle was bought from the oil shop in a little cardboard box.
The shop had a smell of its own. It also sold firewood. This was stacked like a wall in front of the counter in bundles, about a dozen in a bundle, about 6-8 inches long, half 1 inch thick.
The 1911 census shows that my mother's memory was absolutely right: It shows that Alfred Bryant describes himself as an oilman. He was living at 77 Silver Street, probably above his shop, with his wife Catherine, 56, who assisted with the business and his daughter Mabel, 17 born Bethnal Green. He, like his wife, was born in Stepney.
According to Doreen Buckland, there was a hardware shop called Eaton's on the corner of Warwick Road and Silver Street in the 1930s.
The photo from the early 1900s, courtesy of Cliff Raven,, shows a shop on this corner. Image processing software enables the awning to be distorted and enhanced so that it is almost completely legible. It reads:
GROTT?S & SONS
OIL AND DOMESTIC STORES
If you can add further information or a photograph, I would be pleased to hear from you. Pat Cryer
Ironmongers shop in the early 1900s, photographed as a detail from a larger photograph in Milton Keynes Museum. The main wares can just be made out - oil and colour [paint] written above the left-hand window, seed merchants written above the right-hand window, and cooper [maker and seller of barrels] above the door.
SHOPS AND SHOPPING
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the shopping process
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money in use
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buying by weight
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the baker
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the butcher
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the fishmonger
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the cobbler / shoe-mender
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the draper
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the co-op
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the dairy
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the chemist
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the greengrocer
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the grocer
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the ironmonger / hardware shop
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the pawnbroker
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the sweet shop
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the Post Office
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the barber
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the corn-chandler
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the newsagent
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