author Margaret Dowland
Using information from the census and the local trade directories as well as living memories here are the stories of some of the butchers who have lived and worked in Southrepps.
John Ducker 1841 census records a butcher in Lower Street. John was born in Knapton in 1796 and married Elizabeth. They had a son John who is also recorded as a butcher in Lower Street. John junior was born in Southrepps in 1834 and married Judith Long dressmaker of Trimingham in 1855. They do not appear to have had any children. John senior worked as a butcher well into his seventies.
William Blogg worked as a butcher in Upper Street in 1851 and 1858 he is also recorded as Inn keeper of the Crown. Born in Sheringham in 1816, where he was living with his sister Sarah. He married Martha Holmes in Northrepps in 1848; by 1861 they had moved to Tunstead, where he was still a butcher and running the Windmill Public House.
Edward Chapman is listed as both a butcher and publican and worked at the Crown Inn running the butchers from the out houses.
Nehemiah Amess is described butcher in 1871 census; by 1881 he is a pork butcher and his wife Eliza a general shopkeeper. Born in Sidestrand in 1827 he married Eliza Maria Harvey of Southrepps in 1866, they had two children, Elizabeth, and Arthur. By 1891 he is no longer a butcher but is recorded as a grocer with Eliza having no occupation.
Thomas Edward Bird
Thomas was born in Cromer in 1855 and married Mary Lydia Hewitt of Swafield in 1883. He was to run the butchers from the 1880s until around the time of his death in 1936. They had two children Thomas Edward (1884-1958) and Kate (1885-1974). Mary predeceased him in 1926.
Not only was Thomas a butcher but he also ran the Crown Inn. The butchers shop and abattoir were in the building at the rear that runs along the loke.
Thomas Edward junior married Mabel Miller in 1927 and they too had two children Edward in 1927 and Frank in 1930. Click here for his war record. Mabel was a Greyhound breeder.
Frank became an apprentice butcher and took on the business from his father. He married Doreen Woodhouse in 1958 and had a daughter Alison in 1963. They lived in a bungalow in Chapel Street that had previously been the bakery. Frank worked in the butchers until his retirement in the 1991 and died shortly after in 2002. Doreen died in 2015. Ted never worked in the butchers but ran a repair garage in one of the outbuildings.
The Birds were the longest serving butchers however there were others that operated at the same time;
Thomas Knights butcher in Lower Street in 1891. Thomas was born in Hempnall to John Knights and Elizabeth in 1870. By 1901 he is a market gardener still living in Lower Street (Garden Farm), married to Edith Elizabeth Larke and they have a son Edward. Thomas died in 1945. . There is a Charles Knights listed as butcher in 1881 but no record of a connection between the two can be found. There is another Thomas Knights listed as butcher in 1912: could he still be butchering the odd pig?
Thomas Spurgeon Listed as butcher on Long Lane in 1891. Born 1859 in Aldborough, by 1901 he had moved to Mundesley with his wife and family, to continue his trade.
John Knights recorded as a pork butcher in Southrepps in 1911. We know he married Agnes Driver in 1900.