George Pike advertises

George Pike was one of Market Lavington’s butchers and he placed an advert which appeared on the front page of the same paper we featured, with a Lavington and Devizes Motor Services advert, earlier...

The butcher’s shop

Yesterday we looked at one of the tools of the butchery trade – a steelyard. We’ll see a few more today as we see the butcher’s shop in the 1930s. We think this is 1936 and although the shop ...

A butcher’s steelyard

Steelyards are first rate and accurate weighing devices, intended to measure the weight of heavy objects. The object to be weighed is hung on the hooks on the short end of the lever and then a weight ...

License to Slaughter

Life used to be more ‘in the raw’ than it is these days. At any rate in rural areas food production was local in all aspects. The premises behind the butcher’s shop were used as a slaughter-hous...

Butcher’s delivery

This is a still from a promotional film shot and edited by Peter Francis during the inter war years. The film shows the full process – and we really mean full – of getting meat from farm to door....

Butcher’s vans

Time was when shopkeepers delivered the goods. Yes, they do it again now as though it is some wonderful new idea but back in the day before nearly everybody had a car it was entirely the norm for the ...

Butcher Kidner

We were very recently given this postcard. We already had a copy of the image, but this had been trimmed and some of the more interesting information is on the edge which had been lost in the copy....

A steelyard

Steelyard is a word that does not seem to describe the object we are looking at – a kind of weighing scales. Nonetheless, it is the right word for scales such as these. This steelyard is of a hea...

Another Card for Miss Hiscock.

At Market Lavington Museum, we have another card sent to the elusive Miss Hiscock of Twyford, Winchester. The back of the card shows just another personal message, this time not in code and from a ...

The Butcher’s Convention

The Second World War was, no doubt, a bit of a tough time for shop keepers. Coping with all of the regulations must have been onerous, with customer’s ration books to be dealt with. Customers were r...