Tag Archives: butchers

E. Bywaters Butchers

170 London Road, Mitcham, from 1980 to 2000.

E. Bywaters butchers shop, photo kindly provided by proprietor via Facebook Mitcham History Group.

Number 170 London Road was originally called number 2 Eveline Villas, and in the 1925 street directory was occupied by butcher Ernest Reeve, who was still at this address in the 1938 street directory.

1929 clip from Merton Memories photo 51782, copyright London Borough of Merton.

This ad from 1979 shows the butchers shop was run by S.J. Theobald:

1979 SJ Theobald butchers at 170 London Road

S.J. Theobald was also listed at this address in the 1967 chamber of commerce handbook.

From 1983/4 proprietor Edward Bywaters produced an initial run of 50 diaries, later in batches of 100, which he gave free to customers, called ‘The Mitcham Diary’. He also produced calendars for catering customers. This was paid for by advertising, which included an ad for his business, such as this one from the 1986 diary:

Eveline Villas

Two terraces, each of five shops with flats above, on the west side of London Road, divided by Eveline Road, which is at the junction with Streatham Road and Locks Lane.

In the 1915 street directory, the houses were shown as numbered from south to north: from 1 to 5 and then 6 to 10:

1, Ernest McINTYRE, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Lond., physician & surgeon (surgery)
2, William Henry CURTIS
3, Thomas Henry BAND
4, Ernest Alfred ARTHUR
5,
6, Henry Thomas HENCHER
7, Henry HORNCASTLE
8, Hugh ANDERSON
9, Mrs COOK
10, Charles Alexander HURRELL

(Occupant for number 5 wasn’t given in the 1915 directory.)

Planning application no. 614 submitted by H. DALE was approved January 1925 for conversion of numbers 3,4 and 5 to shops. (Mitcham UDC minutes, volume XI, page 560).

In the 1925 street directory:

1, Miss L. FROUDE, confectioner
2, Ernest REEVE, butcher
3, J.W. AUSTIN & Son, provision dealers
4,
5, Sidney BOREHAM
6, Charles LATHAM
7, William DRAKEFORD
8, Hugh ANDERSON
9, Ernest Alfred ARTHUR
10, William Arthur BLEACH

(Occupant for number 4 wasn’t given in the 1925 directory.)

Between 1925 and 1930, these houses were renumbered as part of London Road, north to south, 154 to 162, and 164 to 172.

In the 1930 commercial directory, the shop on the north corner with Eveline Road, originally numbered 6 Eveline Villas, is shown as no. 162 London Road:

The Swan Radio Co., wireless dealers, 162 London Road. Telephone 4009

1934 ad

1934 ad

1951 OS Map

1951 OS Map

There are two Merton Memories Photos from 1929, one looking north, the other, to the south.

World War 1 Connections
Private Francis Norton Drakeford

From the Surrey Recruitment Registers:

W A BLEACH of 1 Eveline Villas, aged 39 Years 10 Months, Carpenter. Volunteered with the Derby Scheme on 11 December 1915 to the Middlesex Regiment.

W S WHITE of 3 Eveline Villas, aged 33 Years 2 Months, Glazier. Conscripted on 10 May 1917 to the Royal Army Medical Corps.


Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.