South Street
1 South Street
Now Martin's Newsagents
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| The curved windows of this building date from the 1920s. |
The building you see here was built in the 1700s, probably on the site of an earlier timber-framed house. It probably first had a shop on the ground floor and living space upstairs.
In the 1920s, the building was renovated when the shop was taken over by WH Smith and Son. The company added the curved window on the corner of South Street and Corn Street, as well as the coats of arms. The sash windows were added in the late 19th or early 20th century.
In October 1940, the cellars of the shop were converted into a basement air raid shelter built to hold 66 people. The building now houses the Post Office. The ground-floor shop unit has been combined with that at 3 South Street. The supermarket chain Morrisons purchased the shop from McColls in 2023.
Image Acknowledgements
Images of advertising sourced from British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) and The British Library Board.
© 2022 Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited.
Images of Leominster shopfronts with kind permission from Herefordshire Museum Service.