Introduction

There are still many who look back to the shops of those days with great nostalgia, recalling how "you could buy almost anything", and indeed every conceivable goods and service has been offered somewhere at some time or another, today there are no general stores or Post Offices left in the village. What has changed is our non-dependence on the local shops for these and all our other requirements and it is that which has transformed the scene so completely. The majority of us, with our own transport today, also no longer rely on the delivery service which was once such a vital element provided by every shopkeeper and tradesman. Almost every old photograph of a shop shows a cart or van parked outside. The butcher at Preston House started with a horse and cart, which he replaced with a motor van about 1928. Others did their round by bike and the Corner Shop in Flexford even delivered by motorbike and sidecar. Tom Turner, who has ran the Westwood Lane Stores with his sister Ethel Turner for nearly thirty years, started his working life at the Corner Shop in the 1950s as an errand boy for Miss Paice was the last to run a delivery service in the village.

Enamel Advertising Sign

from the Willey Green Stores, about 1910

Another interesting activity of some of the very early shops was the production and sale of postcards of local scenes. In the days when few people owned cameras and photographs were rare, these postcards have proved an invaluable source of information on the changing appearance of Normandy and many are reproduced in our book "A Century of Normandy in Surrey". John Horne of Normandy Stores, James Pryor of Pinewoods Newsagents and both J W Bentley and Ralph J Harvey, of the original village shop, produced postcards in the first two decades of the 20th century. They were followed in the 1920s by William J Henry, also of the Normandy Stores, and P A Pepin of the Corner Shop. As recently as the early 1970s Tom Walton of the Normandy Post Office in Glaziers Lane issued a series of six postcards with local views, but so far we have only traced copies of four of them. Dorothy Applebee worked at the Normandy Post Office full time for 46 years then part-time for another 10. When she left school in 1939 she had an offer of a job at a shop in Guildford but her parents didn't like the idea of her going all that way every day.

The Main Road

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Rolph's Store at Willey Green about 1918

This shop was built between 1841 and 1871 and served the Willey Green community at various times as a butchers, general store, bakery and grocery, draper and hosier and sweet shop until the 1970s when it became an antique and bric-a-brac shop, in the 1980s an autoglass shop and most recently a builders' merchant. In another photograph taken before World War I the shop has a flat roof but by the time this picture was taken it had been converted to a pitched roof. Walter Rolph and his wife Ruth, probably seen here standing in the doorway, occupied the shop, which was owned by Bowyers flour merchants of Stoke Mill, from 1910 until Walter's death in 1954. Around 1930 Palmolive had a sales promotion where they gave away 100 sticks of shaving soap, 100 shaving brushes and 100 tablets of soap to the longest established business between Aldershot and Guildford and Rolph's shop won it!

Normandy's Original Shop about 1906

It still survives as the Motorcycle Shop. It is recorded as being a grocery and baker's shop as early as 1841. It remained as such until the 1950s but during this time sold many other items including newspapers and hardware and until about 1900 it was also the village post office. It was occupied by a succession of shop keepers some of whose names are recalled toda y - James Dolley from the 1840s to the 1860s, William Deedman in the 1880s and Horace Holland who was also postmaster in the 1890s. In the early 1900s came J W Bentley and then R J Harvey. During the 1920s and 1930s, when the shop became known as "The Crib", there were Albert E. Durbridge and his wife Rosa, Arthur Page and finally Mrs Carpenter who traded there for nearly 20 years. After standing empty for a while, the Motorcycle Shop was established in 1959 by Mike and Brian Garbutt.

Normandy Stores about 1999

Was clearly feeling the pressure from the large supermarkets, closing down twice for extended periods in the 1990s. It was built about 1900 by John Horne who later went into partnership with Mr Hawes, a shopkeeper in Ash, and who was succeeded by his son John Horne. The next proprietor in the 1920s and 1930s, when petrol was also sold from pumps outside the shop was William J Henry the scoutmaster. In the late 1930s and the 1940s the shop was run by Edward H Worster, followed by Mr Burton, then Mr Denby and then Arnold Court who was successful in obtaining permission for a hairdressers salon at the back of the premises. About this time it came under the Spar franchise. After several further occupiers it became a Circle K shop in the late 1980s then briefly reverted back to the Spar brand before re-opening as Normandy Village Stores in 1999 but was re-closed about a year later and is now a music shop.

This shop has had a remarkably consistent history. It was a grocery, post office and drapery run by J P Pryor and his sister for nearly 30years. In the mid 1930s it was taken over by Arthur Bennett, "newsagent and bookseller" and, although no longer a post office it was a newsagents until it closed in 1996.