50 High Street

  • Probably taken before 2002 showing the south-east corner of Station Road with High Street when this was a Samuels butcher shop.
  • Probably taken c. 2002 when Samuels shop was up for sale as was the shop on the south-west corner now a private house, 48 High Street. Also Rose's fish and chip shop
  • Taken after 2002 when Taylors had taken the Samuels butcher shop.
  • Taylors on the corner and Rose's Plaice fish and chip shop in Station Road. The latter shop had this use for a considerable time before.
  • Taylors on the corner and Rose's Plaice fish and chip shop in Station Road. The latter shop had this use for a considerable time before.
  • 2018 when Taylors
  • c. 2000 when Samuels butcher and Rose's fish and chip shop
  • 2000, Clarkes fish and chip shop in Station Road
  • 1988. Samuels as shown in the Centenary booklet
  • 1977. Samuels as shown in the Jubilee booklet
  • c. 2000 as the 'Wheatley Butchers'
  • c. 2000 when Samuels
  • 2019. Taylors
  • Showing name 'Harbour Cottage' and ownership number 616 in 1910
  • May 2011
Archive Notes:

Photos of shops in Station Road - including Samuels the butcher - which later became the offices of Taylors Services.

The present red-brick shop was built on the site of charming cottages about 1900. In 1911, the occupier was the Premier Meat Company, so its use as a butchers seems to have been established by then. According to contemporary press reports, Premier Meat was a chain of butcher's shops with one at 26 St Aldates in Oxford and another in Abingdon. It can only be assumed that Wheatley did not work for them and was abandoned during or after the Great War. There are other reported occupations as an unemployment office and, in 1920, as a wet fish shop run by the licensee of the Railway Inn, but these cannot be confirmed.

Information as to the use as a butcher's shop came from John West, who provided this information in 2021 and who was born in 1926. His father, Ted, was renting the shop at 50 High Street, trading as WEST BROTHERS as shown in the photo on record 1243, probably taken around late 1920s/early 1930s and before Samuels moved there in 1936. The shop was rented from Ebenezer Stanley. Ted West moved the business across to 2 Station Road, uphill of 48 High Street, in 1936 when Samuels the butchers took over 50 High Street which they ran until 2000 as well as the fish and chip shop. It is now (2018) Taylors building business. Initially Ted ran the shop in Station Road until the late 1950s, then John West took over until about1960/61, before selling up and setting up a new shop in Horspath. 

Photo from 2000 showing Clarke's and Rose's fish and chip shop (in 2020 Mario's) in Station Road. The dwelling, 1 Station Road, used to be called Harbour Cottage and it had an outside privy which has since become part of Taylor's yard. The old maps show this name and, in 1910, this was shown as 616 owned by John Fowler, occupied by Henry Nelms. The significance of the name is unknown.

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