Rushden Research Group: High Street South part 1

High Street South

from the Church at the north end to Crabb Street and the Causeway

Marked pink: South End School, red: Old Meeting Baptist Church, blue: ground cleared and made into a garden

Colin Bryant Collection

A painting of the Church with the village green and Wheatsheaf


c1905 Postcard view from the Green	and probably taken from Hall Park entrance wall


A later view of the cottages next to the Wheatsheaf Inn	and what replaced them in the 1960s

This old farmhouse stood beyond the cottages above. At sometime the Baker Family lived here.

2020 - sold for a redevelopment project

No 2 High Street South - the top of Skinners Hill

Extract from the memories of Mr Henry Hobbs:

“I was born,” he said, “on the very spot where Skinner’s butcher’s shop stands now, in 1851.
It was butcher’s shop then but kept in a thatched house, and we lived in the house at the end.

4-10 High Street South

Ginns the Blacksmith traded at No 8

When Rushden Hall was sold in 1929, the Town Council purchased Rushden Hall and Grounds to create a Public Park, and William Norwood Ginns purchased No 8 by a mortgage on the 8th of February 1930. The purchase was "subject to the right of the owners of numbers 4 & 6 to use the common passage between number 6 & number 8 to the coal barns, W.C. and water tap, and the common pathway at the rear of them.

Coach and Horses c1880 before the road was improved


Formerly the Swan and Dolphin, the old Coach and Horses was demolished c1934, and replaced by the flat roofed properties in the next photograph.	l-r: Florence Simpson's, the last remaining thatched property in Rushden, the Hall Park entrance, Helen - ladies' hairdresser, George Robinson's garage, Ginns blacksmith's


No. 22 - c1970s - Photo by Vic Childs - courtesy of Rushden Museum — and shortly before closure in the 1990 The property was rethatched in 2019


From the Coach and Horses Inn looking south showing the park wall down to the only thatched property in Rushden today.	c1910 the junction with Griffith Street

At the junction, earlier Smith's Farm

c1890 An outworker delivering his shoe work to a small factory of John Cave near the
yard of the old Waggon & Horses - the middle building - and Robert Butcher's shop.
The trees near the gateway to Rushden Hall, and beyond is the old Coach & Horses.


The Hall Grounds wall and gate being moved back Courtesy of the late Colin Bryant's Collection	In the 1950s Centre picture is the Waggon & Horses


26 High Street South - Jinny Wells' shop in early 1900s and George Moore's greengrocery in the mid 1900s - the trees behind are in the Hall Park grounds	In 2008 Barry Miller's hairdressers at No. 40 and an Indian take-away at No. 38 formerly Bill Poole's vacuum cleaner shop, with 5 cottages in Robb's yard behind (28-36)

Left is the Conservative Club and right the Wagon & Horses

Mrs Perkins outside
51 High Street South

		The Co-op shop in High Street South and row of houses to the corner of Crabb Street. Behind the shop at right angles to the road there was a row of cottages, now partly demolished, was named Co-op Row.
A similar view in 2011 - buildings gone and grassed. (right) The block of flats built on ground behind the old buildings.


Commerce House at the corner of Crabb Street is the first of the properties on the High Causeway

Courtesy of the late Colin Bryant's Collection

c1897 Old South End School built in 1871 stands near the corner
of Wymington Road - now the premises of the Full Gospel Church

We have no date but the caption is "navvies laying first sewer in High Street South near Rushden high wall".


High St South & Wymington Road junction 2009	Demolition of Townsend's in 2009 gets underway

This datestone was rescued from an old barn - next to the School - later used by Townsend's Garages

Flats next to Townsends site where Bow Windows used to be

Townsend's site looking towards Crabb Street c1950 and a York Bros bus

1910 Valuations

High Street South part 2

Robbs Yard

Demolition 2010

94 High Street South

Shops

Farrier Court 2017