At the corner of Pratt Road and Cromwell Road a house and shop was built for Mr. W. Chettle on plot 77 in 1890. A second plot adjoining was to be a yard and storage. Below the house there was a cellar and another beneath the shop.
The shop entrance was on the corner, with the house entrance in Pratt Road. The house had a parlour above the cellar, a living room beyond, and a kitchen was behind the shop, with a window fronting Cromwell Road. Stairs to the bedrooms were between the living room and kitchen, with a large walk-in pantry beyond.
William Chettle, grocer and beer seller, and Sarah his wife lived and traded at the corner of Pratt Road and Oliver Cromwell Road.
His application in 1900 for a full out-door beerhouse was refused, but he would have continued to sell beer as an agent, filling his own bottles from a barrel in the outhouse or one the cellars.
In 1891 their son Walter, aged 14, was already a photographer. Walter had opened a shop by 1898 at 22 Higham Road and set up a photography studio.
William Tomkins left 24 Higham Road in 1909. Walter's brother William Horace took the shop and traded there as a hairdresser and tobacconist's.
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