81 High Street
J Pedler and then his wife Martha had a butcher’s shop here from the 1830s to the 1860s. By 1867 the business had become a tobacconist and remained in that use until the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society bought the building in the 1980s.
82 High Street
The Bugle Hotel, one of the town’s many pubs, was here from at least 1675 until the 1960s. Parish meetings were held at the inn in the 18th century when a Mrs Robinson was the landlady. One later, long-serving landlord was Silas Dore. William Backhurst operated out of the yard of the Bugle Inn in the 1880s as a ‘fly proprietor’, which meant he hired out one-horse carriages (known as flies). The Backhurst family later expanded the business, hiring out coaches for special occasions and operating out of the Angel Yard. It is now Halifax.
83 High Street
Charles Blake, a saddler and maker of leather goods, had a store here from the 1850s to the 1890s. In 1931 the chain store Home & Colonial moved in and remained in operation until the 1980s. It is now the Dog’s Trust.
The Lymington Town Band march past the Bugle Hotel during a parade in the 1950s, in this photo taken by Myles Cooper.
Staff outside Home and Colonial in 1931. The van driver Jo Murray is on the left and William Metcalf, manager, is second from right.
The shop window of Home and Colonial and a view inside the store in the 1930s. The business was founded by Julius Charles Drew, who was born in 1856 and went into the tea business through his uncle’s firm, Peek and Winch. He opened his own tea shop in Liverpool in 1877 and another in London in 1883 under a new name: The Home & Colonial Stores. By 1903 there were 500 branches and but the name disappeared from our high streets not long after the 1960s.
