Elegant shops used to line Brentford high Street many
with attractive projecting windows. Pigot's Middlesex
Directory of 1823-4 shows there was plenty of choice
for staple goods. It lists 14 grocers, two chemists,
five butchers, eight coal merchants, and 11 boot and
shoemakers. Also among many others, there were 11
tailors, seven milliners and dressmakers, five straw
hat makers, two stay and corset makers and five
booksellers and stationers. When the Great Western
Railway opened its Brentford Town Station people from
Southall used to travel to Brentford just to do their
shopping.
The very first branch of the grocery chain
known as International Stores was opened in
Brentford in 1878. The man behind the chain was
Hudson Ewbank Kearley whose firm Heseltine and
Kearley (later Kearley and Tonge) opened a shop
called the International Tea Company at 339
Brentford High Street. After 1880 many branches
of the international Stores were opened through
out the country. Kearley later turned his attention
to politics, becoming the MP for Devonport,
He was created Baron Davenport, of Whittington
Bucks in 1910 and Viscount Devenport in 1917.
The Goddard family have been trading in Brentford
since 1815. They run several different businesses-
umbrella making, china and glass selling, auctioneers,
estate agents-as well dealing in furniture and removals.
The present premises at 225 high Street were built in
1970. Brantford's retail trade began to decline after
World War 1 since trams and buses gave people easy
access to larger shopping centres at Richmond and
Kingston By 1940 local shops were 'mere ghosts of
other and more in prosperous times' according to
a resident reminiscing in the Brentford and Chiswick
times. He says 'Our shops were the envy of small
insignificant villages, which have now become
flourishing towns…. forty years ago there were
about one hundred shops in the High Street…the
shops were ablaze of light and crowds of people
thronged the high street at weekend's. Brentford
High Street certainly doesn't appear to have
attracted many of the familiar chains though
there was a Home and Colonial Stores and a Freeman
Hardy and Willis in 1902, a Boots chemist by 1912
and a Woolworth's by 1955.Rattenbury's shop was
a well-known Brentford landmark. It sold jewellery
at no 288 Brentford High Street and functioned as
a pawnbroker at 289. It closed in January 1968 and
in the following October the London Museum purchased
its famous façade. This is now on display in the
Museum of London.
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Last Updated: 21st NOVEMBER 2005
