1) Do you recognise this place? What’s the name of this business?
We have left you a small clue (an English alphabet) in the photo. What’re your memories of this place?
How has the place changed? Please share.
2) What road was this on? Tell us something about the history or your childhood of this place.
3) Recognise this road? Share your memories. What were there in your days?
Put your answers in the comment below. Thank you.
1 C’est un grand magasin n’est-ce pas?
I can’t read French, Mary, but your answer could be right! 🙂
Some readers have revealed the answer in this thread.
Easy this week –
1) Now ASDA, pictured when being built as Carrefour.
2) Outside Fire & Police HQ., Leigh Road. Was originally built as North End Secondary School in the 1930’s. (My secondary school between 1958 & 1963).
3) Winchester Road, Fryern Hill, pictured approx. by entrance to present day precinct, looking north.
Martin,
Brilliant!
Yes it cas Carrefour. It’s the original image (with all the English alphabets in)!
Who can name the shops in this area over the years?
What had gone in recent years: NatWest bank, Asante Coffee Shop.
Where you can see cafe sign on left, my 92 year old mother recognised it as WideAwake Cafe and she worked there as a waitress during war. A lot of injured pilots went having been brought there by a chap every Saturday after being taken to football.
1/ Agree now Asda store – used to be Carrefour the French super market along Bournemouth Rd.
2/ Fire and rescue HQ also temp police HQ I think was North End Secondary school – also my school from 1953 to 1957; happy days.
3/ Winchester Rd going towards Winchester the cafe is the old Wide awake cafe – did good food in there, bit greasy maybe for this day and age but good then. Used to meet mates up there on our motor bikes in the 1960’s.
Roger, yes the 3rd picture is exactly Winchester Road, at the entrance of today’s Fryern Arcade. Well done!
Wow – you remember the cafe. Thanks for sharing as I didn’t know of that. Food is still greasy today in many places.
Talking of the Wide-Awake Cafe … my mother always knew when I had been there, because she could smell the fumes from the cooking on my clothes, but as has already been said, the food was good, and, as it was a Transport Cafe, cheap!!! …
In passing, some of the other buildings in the photo I also remember … the shop with the awning out just past the cafe was Olson’s the butchers, where I worked on a Saturday morning, delivering meat in C/Ford, Otterbourne, Compton, Twyford and Brambridge … next to Olson’s was Scammell & Smith Estate Agents and on the opposite side of the road is an Ironmonger (Hardware), but I can’t remember what is was called …
Further down on the same side is a Garage, which I think is known as Fryern Hill Garage … in the 50’s/60’s there were actually 3 garages at Fryern Hill … one of them was where the Co-op now is, and the other one between Brownhill Road and the Fish and Chip shop … going on down towards Winchester, the last building on the right was Hardwicke’s Dairy.
Doug Clews
Excellent details. Thank you Doug for sharing your memories with us.
ps. North End school now revamped as Thornden an anagram of North End .
Brilliant answer, Roger!
Can I throw in a supplementary question for #1? The store didn’t change directly from Carrefour to Asda. What was it in between?
Northend School (so named because it was built on the former Northend Farm) became Thornden (see what they did there?) when it moved to Chandler’s Ford. The premises were then briefly occupied by Toynbee School before that school’s new building was completed. When I was working in Winchester in the late 1980s one of my colleagues, who was not that much older than I was, had been to school in that building.
Was it Gateway, Chippy? I still sometimes call it Carrefour by mistake. It seemed such a big hyper store when it opened.
Yes, Mary, it was Gateway for a short period. When Asda took over, the store continued selling Gateway products for a few months.
As far as I know Carrefour are still about although in France there is a big Carrefour store in Le Havre close to the ferry port.
One of the garages at Fryern Hill was called South Hants Engineering I believe not sure if it was that far as in the photo .
Correct Roger … that was the one where the co-op is now, between Brownhill Rd and the Wide-Awake … the other 2, I think, were Young’s and Short’s, but not sure which was which …
Doug from WOZ
The store became Gateway in the late 1980s, then Asda.