Starting as a ‘sports and radio’ shop, Tring’s opened on 30th August 1946 at 40/41 Monarch Parade, London Road.
This ad from 1947 was for their 1st anniversary:
Streatham News, 29th August 1947, via British Newspaper Archive
This ad from 1959 shows inside the shop with 30 television sets on display.
In June 1963, Mr J.T. TRING sold his shares in the Tring’s (Mitcham) Ltd. and kept the sports shop as Tring’s Sports (Mitcham) Ltd.
Tring’s Sports shop ad from the 1971 Mitcham Cricket Club yearbook
There is a photo of the shop around 1987 on Merton Memories.
Mr James Thomas TRING was born 12th April 1904 in Battersea, and died on 25th August 1992 at Worthing. He was living in St. Georges Road, Mitcham, in 1950, according to this news item:
Summoned at Mitcham on Monday for allowing the improper storage of fireworks at his premises at Monarch Parade, Mitcham. Mr J T Tring, St George’s Road, Mitcham, was fined a total of £7.
It was stated that defendant had been authorised to store 100-lb. of fireworks at his premises. When the premises were visited, however, 186-lb. of fireworks were found and some were stored unsatisfactorily. In the witness box, defendant said that the fireworks were special orders he had made up for customers. At the time he had been busy organising a local radio and television exhibition. He was unaware that the manner in which the fireworks were stored was illegal. The manufacturers were partly to blame as they did not issue clear instructions. He assured the court that premises in London Road were 100 per cent fireproof.
Walter Arthur Sanders, of London Road, Mitcham, was fined £5 for keeping 200 fireworks in an unauthorised place.
Bakery that was at 33 Upper Green East, where they had a shop and, up to the 1970s, did deliveries around Mitcham by horse and cart. The Turner family had been in the bakery business for almost 200 years.
Clip from 1969 photo by Bill Rudd, reproduced by kind permission of the Merton Historical Society.
The Bill Rudd collection of photos taken in October 1968 on the Merton Historical Society website includes the delivery horses:
The bakery stopped using horses in 1973, as told in this article from the Mitcham News and Mercury, 10th August 1973.
A change of horse power after two hundred years
SALLY the famous horse used by Turners, the Mitcham bakery, has delivered her last loaf of bread. She’s been driven off the streets, together with stable mates Billy and Brandy, because of the rising costs of their own staple food, hay and oats. After nearly 200 years, Turners, one of Merton’s oldest bakeries, have decided that the four footed deliveries of bread and cakes are getting too expensive.
So the three horses have had to go and will be replaced by vans to cover the five mile routes where they were firm favourites with housewives, old folk, children, and gardeners.
During the last two years the firm have tried to ignore the steadily rising prices of feed and shoe-ing because their horses and carts were a tradition and good public relations.
“But in the last few months these have shot up no much in price, shoe-ing has doubled in price for example, that we just can’t afford them any more” said general manager, Mr Ken Turner.
“It’s very sad. I know everyone wilt miss them. I will myself after all these years of keeping horses I’m 60 per cent baker and 40 per cent horse-man.
“The kids loved to feed them and they loved their work. When they went on holiday they often fretted to come back. But they are just not economic any more.”
The three were stabled at the back of the bakery at Fair Green and daily covered most of Mitcham between them.
“There was also the problem that the men who used to drive them have recently retired and its difficult to find young men willing to learn to drive a horse and cart” said Mr Turner.
The firm have always used horses for deliveries to customers, although a fleet of vans has also covered routes between the four shops in the Mitcham area. Recently Turners, a family business since 1792, was taken over by Spillers.
“But the decision has had nothing to do with them. I think they are as sorry as we are. All the staff will miss them too,” said Mr Turner.
The three, Sally, (pictured above), Brandy and Billy are all aged between 12 and 14 years-old. Last year Sally surprised the firm by producing a foal as a momentoe of a holiday romance the previous year.
Now the three have been stabled with some friends of Mr Turner’s at Epsom where they will work in a riding school.
Video showing how to find the Bill Rudd photos:
Comments on this video:
I used to buy my Mum cakes from Turner’s when I was in trouble, as a kid, and picked up sandwiches from Turner’s for my colleagues in the 1970s – we worked at Express Dairies Distribution in Beddington Lane (which had no canteen) . I used to ring in from a phone box EVERY day to take people’s orders. Incidentally, “Babes ‘n’ Tots” was a shop that sold everything from nappy pins to prams – and they probably closed down when my Mum stopped having kids! Best Wishes -and thanks for the memories – from Chatham
From a former resident of Mitcham, now living in Thailand:
The Turners’ bread cart used to come along Lammas Avenue where we lived! As a kid I was allowed to sit on the cart’s driving bench. There was a small Hovis type loaf on the seat! I took a bite. Later the driver saw the bite I had taken and ‘clipped my ear’ and sent me away! Naughty boy I guess! Greetings from Thailand.
Mitcham History Notes 