Hardware store: Suffolk's Partridges has 200-year history showcased
- Published
The current owners of M W Partridge & Co have retired and put the business up for sale
The 200-year history of a hardware store that has an uncertain future has been put on display.
Sally Looker decided to curate the exhibition about MW Partridge & Co in Hadleigh, Suffolk, after the owners retired and moved away.
She said the business started off as an ironmongers in 1819 and changed hands many times over the years.
Its future is "yet to be determined", she said.
There are currently plans to redevelop the Partridges site on High Street.
Under the proposals, external, drawn up by Wincer Kievenaar, there would be a smaller Partridges along with a number of other retail units, a pedestrianised square with thoroughfare from George Street and apartments.
Mrs Looker, from the town council's Hadleigh Archives Group, hoped "some of the unique 'Partridge culture' will be maintained".
She said: "Mention Hadleigh to anyone who has been to this Suffolk market town and they will invariably say something along the lines of 'ah, Partridges, what a wonderful shop'.
"It has built its reputation as the sort of place where a person can go in and buy anything from a single lost nut, to a lawnmower or a teapot."
These Partridges employees were photographed taking a break in the 1960s
The first owner Thomas Pritty put an advertisement in the Ipswich Journal in 1819, saying he was starting his business at the site.
He told readers he was an ironmonger and a "dealer in china, glass, earthenware... and goods of every description".
"That pretty well sums up the range of products today," said Mrs Looker.
"Ah, Partridges, what a wonderful shop" - as it looks now
This invoice from 1951 shows Partridges supplying materials for another local Hadleigh company, Wilson's Corn & Milling Co
She said the business grew to be a major supplier of agricultural implements and evidence of its work can be still seen in the town, including the seats outside the almshouses in George Street.
"The business appears to have been able to change direction - when gas lighting came to Hadleigh, they provided all of the iron work for the gas lights," she said.
It is a place "where a person can go in and buy anything from a single lost nut, to a lawnmower or a teapot"
It is hoped the business will maintain "some of the unique 'Partridge culture'"
In October 1838, the Ipswich Journal reported that Mr Pritty was a victim of a "daring highway robbery".
The paper also told of a "dreadful murder" of a shoemaker who lived in two cottages that later became part of the Partridges site.
It was not until 1929 that Maitland Walter Partridge and Daniel Partridge of Kersey bought the business, giving the store its Partridges name.
That partnership dissolved in 1934 and Maitland and his sister Edith registered the company as M W Partridge & Co, and it became limited 15 years later.
The exhibition is being held at Hadleigh's Guildhall until Sunday.
Partridges has changed direction to keep up with demand over the years, said archivist Sally Looker
Under proposals for the redevelopment of the site, there would be a pedestrianised square and a thoroughfare from George Street
.