Rushden Research Group: Maypole

Maypole

The Maypole was established around 1900 at 58 High Street.

Maypole Dairy Co. shop front & detail

	Note the MDC and carved panel. The chain stay for the blind and the hanging handle to pull out the blind on sunny days.

Rushden Echo, Dec 28^th 1917

The Maypole Dairy Co. Served over 2000 customers before 11a.m. on Saturday last, and it is estimated that the queue of people standing two deep would have reached from St. Mary’s Church to the railway bridge.

The Maypole Dairy started around 1900 at number 58 High Street as butter dealers and in June 1926 they moved across the road to number 97, where they expanded their trade to groceries.

The old shop front was adorned by these magnificent carvings. The carvings were overpainted several times during the life of the shop. When the front was redesigned the carvings were saved by Clive Wood, and he removed the paint to reveal the full details of the carved panels.

Below is the mosaic floor panel just inside the door. The cameraman arrived too late to get the whole!

No firm date for its closure has been found, but probably the late 1960s.

Central High Street in about 1955

The business moved to this shop at 96 High High Street in 1926.

Woolworths and the Maypole - two High Street institutions of the 1950s that have now gone.

F W Woolworth and Co Ltd. opened their bazaar in 1926 and it closed in 2009.

This picture was taken when there were just four days to go in the final sale.

It then opened as Heron's frozen food store. This also closed within a year, and it is currently selling second-hand items recycled from the local dump (2011). In 2012 it is to be another coffee shop.

Index of All Traders