Page 20 - Jigsaw August 2020

Glance at the past........................................................................................
Town connections – Eric Franklin and the story of Bridge Street
Bridge Street, unsurprisingly, leads from town to the Nine Arch Bridge. Beginning
at Cosy Nook there were businesses and homes along the street plus factories and
a railway station. If you look at the Bridge Hotel the separate individual properties can be seen. In 1936, on the opposite side and from the corner of Midland Road were: No. 1 Mr. Sanders; No. 3 Crawley’s Stores; No. 5 Spite motor works; No. 7 Mr. Ashbourne (optician), Miss Parsons (hairdresser), Mrs. Throssell and Miss Read; No. 9 was Mr. Waterfield’s boot stores; No. 11 Shadbolt & Sons garage; No. 13 Loveday’s Café and finally the Temperance Hall.
The picture below shows members of the Shadbolt family in front of the garage in circa 1910 (with thanks to Ron Shadbolt, Essex, for permission to use this image).
Businesses along the even side of the road were Shelton’s butchers, Mr. Pears (dentist), Pettit & Son (builder) and the
Thrapston Sand & Gravel Company.
(All details taken from the 1936 edition
of Leayton’s Thrapston Almanack and Directory). An unused invoice from the 1920’s issued by George Pears is shown. Both the Almanack and photograph (right) are in the EDF Collection.
The second picture (right), taken from
the level crossing at the station, shows the station entrance with the Sand & Gravel Company and their weighbridge and a row of cottages beyond, lived in by, amongst others, Messrs. Chapman, Cooper and Boulton. The entrance to Thrapston Wharf, mentioned in last November’s article, is on the right about level with the front of the bus crossing the bridge from Islip.
Last year we were fortunate to be able to make our second visit to Australia where we visited Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. How grateful we are that we didn’t book
to go this year! Whilst we were in Sydney, we found another Bridge Street with roads off leading to a questionably even more impressive bridge than the Nine Arch Bridge. Sydney Harbour Bridge can be partly seen in the picture (below) through the trees at the end of Loftus Street leading to Circular Quay. Although much more recent than our bridge, only being completed in 1932, it is one of the iconic sights in the world and a perfect backdrop to the Opera House.
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