Many will suggest Peacock & Binnington, the agricultural specialists on Bridge Street, or Wallhead's, the renowned Wrawby Street outfitters.
However, although these were established in Brigg during the 1890s, another of today's business was already on the go when they arrived on the scene.
Thomas Bell was founded in 1878, as local agricultural millers and grain merchants.
This date appears on the front of the modern Country Store, off Bigby Road, near the level crossing.
A sign says "pet, equestrian and country since 1878."
Incidentally, that same year saw the town's Grammar School altered and enlarged.
Some Brigg pubs were operating in 1878 but, back then, they were not being run by the companies that have them today.
So can we declare Thomas Bell the most long-established Brigg business?
Or can you think of another company that came on the scene before 1878?
Answers on a postcard, please (Penny Black affixed?) or by more modern methods. Email scoopfisher@aol.com or post a comment here.
Having mentioned Victorian stamps, we should add that although the Post Office would have been present in Brigg by the 1870s it was then a national concern and has long since been privatised. So we'll have to rule it out.
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7 comments:
How about......Barclays Bank..1690's...!!!??
....it depends on your definition of a 'Brigg business'...
according to definition...Clare College Cambridge is another possibility.
The college was a major landowner in the area and gives it name to College Yard.....the Lloyds Bank building ...original part built in 1601 as a farmhouse. ((the building that appears to have some connection to a number of perpetrators (possibility of the Wright brothers of Twigmoor Hall, Ambrose Rookwood husband of Eliz Tyrwhitt of Bigby Hall and Father Garnet in the Gunpowder Plot - 1605))
....add..the Lloyds Bank building is still owned by Clare College..
.......and we could add that naughty profession...
....it depends on your definition of a 'Brigg business'...
....and in the equation one could add Brigg Railway Station...it's just surviving from 1848.
It's management may have changed over the decades, but, as a unit, it still offers a trading facility, or business.....
Now for me bit of history....
When the line was being constructed, it was proposed to build a major rail junction in Brigg...this would have given a direct line to London and lines to Sheffield and Doncaster etc.
However, the Elwes objected of having such a junction near their land and property the Manor House.
Consequently, the Wrawby Juction was built serving Barnetby...and New Barnetby evolved from the change of plan.
Some decades later, the new steel town of Scunthorpe grew, centred around the steelworks....
This poses the conjecture of whether Brigg, with it's rail junction could have become the industrial steel making location...and one of the villages of Frodingham, Crosby or Ashby become the rustic amenities centre in the style as Brigg has become today.
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