Thursday 22 May 2014

Searching Burrows Brothers Tea Blenders

Now I am back with that wonderful ghost sign for Burrows Brothers Tea Blenders.

The image comes from that excellent site Ashton-under-Lyne.com where there is a nice piece on the shop and Arthur Brooks of Brook Bond Tea.*

I had no idea he was born in Ashton just 150 yards away from this spot in a shop where his father sold loose tea.

But the rest of the story you will have to go to Ashton-under-Lyne.com.

For now it is Mr Burrows and his brothers who intrigue me.
I have done the lazy task and searched the net to no avail.  So I rather think it will be the old fashioned way of trawling hard copies of local street directories and the rate books which give dates and perhaps names.

There may of course be people who remember the firm my even have worked for them.
So today I shall be off to the local history archive.

I may equally strike lucky with news from someone of their knowledge of the Brothers.

We shall see.

And just a few hours after I posted the story Michael Winterbottom wrote to me that  "can't help much but my late mother worked in accounts for Burrows in the late 40s. 

I remember her saying that Mr Burrows lived in a hitel in Buxton and commuted by car from there. She also remembers the tea being delivered in crates from the sidings at Charlestown station. 

I'm pretty sure that they sold more than tea as well. 

Hope this helps and good luck !"

Well it certainly did Michael, thank you and was just a start because Michael was followed by Valerie Newman who remembers the "shop sold coffee roasted beans.   You could smell the coffee from the bottom of the avenue, they also sold broken orange peko from Ceylon known as Sri Lanka today and next door was a shoe shop not sure but think it was Timpsons."

*Ashton-under-Lyne.com, http://ashton-under-lyne.blogspot.co.uk/2011_04_01_archive.html

Pictures;Martin © www.ashton-under-lyne.com

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