Woodland Yard is the area which now has industrial and commercial units. Until about 1960, the yard was entered via a carriage arch which had a room above it. We think that a photo used earlier on the blog was taken from the room above the arch.

At about the time that the Market Place was redeveloped, the agricultural engineers in the village, Wordley’s, decided to remove the arch and the room above to improve access to the yard which they used, at the time. Agricultural implements, like combine harvesters were getting bigger and those giants of their day could not be moved underneath the arch. So the arch went.

This photo, taken in 1960, shows the arch as demolition began.

Demolition begins on the carriage arch at Woodland Yard in 1960 - a photo at Market Lavington Museum

The scaffolding is up and men are working on removing ridge tiles from the top of the roof. The whole building was taken out, including the upstairs and downstairs rooms on the right. Beyond that is the building which, for many years was a hardware shop. In the 19^th century, this had belonged to the Baker family and later to the Phillips family. More recently, the Bulsons and then the Hulls ran the shop. It is now a private house.

A member of the Baker family sketched their shop and the Woodland Yard Arch – we don’t have a date for the sketch.

A sketch of the former hardware shop and the Woodland Yard arch

To the left of the arch is the butcher’s shop which, at that time was being run by Mr Pike.  This has been a butcher’s shop for 2 centuries and we are delighted to say that it still is.