Part 1 of a series – John Jefferies & Son
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The centre of Cirencester has buildings of a variety of ages, from the Roman City Wall (a small part of which is visible in the Abbey Park) to Victorian and more recent constructions. Walking in the town with my camera today, I took some shots of a 19th century development.
These are the upper floors of a three-storey terrace, a planned development that replaced older properties. The section at the right hand end was used as a florist’s shop for many decades (now Vodafone). I remember it as a child because my father was one of four brothers who owned and ran the shop as part of a larger business with several plant nurseries in the country areas around the town.
The shop had a wonderful cellar, always full of mysterious packages of garden chemicals and other shop stock, and before Christmas there were sometimes hyacinth bulbs being forced for early flowering. There was a marvellous fusty, moist, florist’s aroma in the cellar, but the most exciting thing was the knowledge that the cellar was bigger than the shop floor above. Castle Street was widened when the new development was built, but the cellars of the old buildings were retained. There are stone pillars in the cellar that support the heavy masonry above.
Here’s another view of the same shop from a different angle, the photo was taken by my father in the 1960s. I love the fact that this image includes the shop window displays as these always fascinated me as a young child. I also remember that my grandfather’s office window was above the main door on the corner, and the landscape design office was on the top floor with the small bay window.
And finally, for comparison, here’s another view of the same shop today.
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