A shopping trip in Ramsgate High Street in 1971, sorry if you are too young for this, up one side from No.1 Midland Bank, or up the other from The Wimpy Bar, its up to you.
As you probably know I produce reprints of directories for the Thanet towns covering various years from 1849 to 1971. The main idea here is checking up on where granny lived or the identity of ghost that keeps leaving the red stain on the floor of your house.
The pictures above are pages from the 1971 directory covering Ramsgate High Street, I will probably do some other streets. The photo at the top is last year.
There are two sorts of directory, one sort where the names of the people and businesses are arranged in alphabetical order and the other sort where the streets are arranged in alphabetical order.
Of course in recent years high streets have mostly not done too well (I think the picture sums up the problem) and those with out of town shopping centres nearby have done particularly badly.
For anyone who has got a bit carried away with this
one here is the link to the buy it now buttons http://michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/an_isle_of_thanet_directory_1849.htm
It's Thursday tomorrow so my bookshop is closed as it is on Sundays and bank holidays, on other days you can of course come into the bookshop here in Ramsgate and browse away inside the directories.
Before the High Street in Ramsgate was called High Street it was called West End and I assume before Ramsgate was Ramsgate it was the track to the sea from the village of St Lawrence.
Back in around 1400 when this map was drawn Ramsgate didn't feature on it at all.
I think my favourite from this is "140 Albert Inn.........here is Paradise"!!
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember a road sweeper in ramsgate called bill cheeseman was around in the 1950s 1960s
ReplyDelete47 high street where I was born in 1968 easifit shoe shop fantastic thanks for this!
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