please empty your brain below

This is the comments box for nostalgic comments about parades of shops (and how they've changed).
It actually feels like this parade of shops hasn’t changed much compared to most others, which would now be betting shop, salon, nail bar, convenience store, take away, take away, take away, closed take away.
Good chain resistance with only a Londis opening, and keeping 25% the same for 40 years is an achievement!

The move to services obvious from the two salons.
Our parade has changed slightly over the last 20 years, the newsagent no longer sales papers/magazines, the betting shop and dry cleaners have gone and so has one of the 24hr food shops. In has come a barbers and a cycle shop and the betting shop is still empty with its old sign showing turf accountants now on display.

We seem to have more doubling up these days so its still not unusual to have a post office but as part of another shop - in our case a pharmacy and a cafe that also becomes a bar at night. Its notable that newsagents are no longer a staple part of a shopping parade nor minicab offices both succumbing to the digital world of apps.
Does no one say bookies any more?
The local parade from my 60s noth London childhood was:
Launderette - Newsagent - Grocer - Shoe Repairs - Greengrocer - Newsagent 2 - Hardware
.. and opposite ..
Post Office - Accountants - Greengrocer 2 - Betting Shop - Dry Cleaners - Pub
The Bottom shops have had a number of changes. Cafe where the green grocer was, a physio where the butcher was, news agent has morphed into a mini mart. Field opposite is now a school.
Lucky to still have a greengrocer! Little did we know the fledgling supermarkets would have so much impact. When I was a kid I watched the women shaping butter into 1/2lb packs from a block in sainsbury. There was a fresh fish shop and a deli that sold saveloys and pease pudding - not a pizza or kebab in sight!
I’m really interested in ghost parades; these seem more of a phenomenon in inner london and I can think of a few in north and SW London. They tend to be on roads off the main primary routes so probably suffered from a lack of passing trade. You also don’t seem to get them so much in east London; I wonder if the demographics have meant more of a reliance on local shops.
There are plenty of Ghost parades in my corner of East London. Usually accompanied by crimes against architecture when they were converted to residential.
One explanation for the loss of the 'news and PO' from the 1980s parade of shops is the invisible addition of mobile phone signal in the intervening years.
Most of the "chain" convenience shops are actually franchises (what the trade calls a symbol group") with independent operators. Notable amongst these, Londis/Budgens is franchised by Tesco (via their merger with Booker), One-stop is also Tesco franchise, Nisa-Today is a franchisee owned mutual supply company. Costcutter is part franchise. SPAR is a double franchise (International Spar franchises to a local wholesaler who franchises to the shop)

Of the true company owned chains, Co-Op is slightly more likely to show up in this kind of parade, in a double frontage.
My first local parade of shops included a North Thames Gas showroom. I don't think it was much of a showroom, more a place you went to pay the bill. Last time I looked it was a designer tile shop.

My nearest local parade these days has lost its hardware shop, its post office and its newsagents. Instead we've gained a barbers, a very expensive dentist and a Thai spa. I think the only two addresses that have kept the same type of business are the off licence and the dry cleaners.
I'd be interested to know how they came to be called "parades"! Ours in the 1960s consisted of a chemist, a grocer, a butcher and a newsagent. All had the name of the proprietor emblazoned above the shopfront, two of whom resided over the respective premises. A chip shop adjacent had already closed by the time I was on the scene. Now just one chain convenience store occupies the space of two of the former shops. The current store also has a post office counter, which does not renew TV licences.
Where I grew up in 1950s suburban Scotland a parade of 3 shops almost certainly included a sweet shop. It's no coincidence that Scots of my generation have bad teeth.

I just looked on StreetView at our old parade: 4 out of the 5 shops are now housing and the fifth is 'DicedMealPrep', which seems to prepare and deliver instant meals.
The number of takeaways has definitely increased, as people became more used to not cooking. I wonder if "Just Eat" type home delivery services will reduce the numbers again, unless there's a local pub to generate late night trade?

I find that "ethnic" areas tend to have more vibrant local parades, with more people shopping locally at their independent "ethnic" small supermarket, using the local cafe etc, rather than going into Tesco's or the town centre.
My childhood parade used to contain all of the regular independent shops, including a very 'Grace Bros' style Gentleman's Outfitters, which lasted until at least the early 2000s!

Now there seems to be an awful lot of places selling luggage!
John, the Sicilian barber at “we are - - - Hair For You”, moved in following the closure of his former shop in New Road. I have been a customer for nearly 40 years. Aged 86 and still working part-time, John tells me that he has no intention of retiring.
An alien dropping in to most contemporary parades might conclude that all people do is buy takeaways or coffee, don’t eat fresh fish or vegetables, and never get their shoes mended or have domestic items repaired.
Wot! No Charity Shop?
Historic England have some information on the history of the English shopping parade here, including a DCLG definition from 2012: "a group of 5 to 40 shops in one or more continuous row, with a mainly local customer base, containing a high number of small or micro-businesses with some multiples and symbol affiliates and is largely retail based ... with some local services"

They distinguish it from the traditional town centre or high street, and rows of shops that develop on some road from the conversion and extension of the front rooms of dwellings.

There have been rows of shops essentially forever, initially just part of the place where the retailer lived, but there were paved streets called "parade" (similar to "walk" or "promenade") from the 17th and 18th century - for example, in Bath and Brighton - long before the term "shopping parade" was used.

The original Oxford Circus/Regent Street completed in 1825 was an early example of the purpose-built row of shops, since rebuilt. A row of shop units was built at "Brunswick Parade" in Pentonville in 1825, now demolished. But the close association of "parade" with "row of shops" appears to be a mid to late Victorian thing, as suburbs spread and there was increased demand for local retailers, away from traditional high streets.
“Parade” because it sounded more upmarket than just a high street, perhaps.
When I moved here 30 years ago the parade round the corner had
Hardware, Glazier, Genberal store, Off licence, Chippy, Newsagent, Greengrocer, Dry cleaner, Funeral parlour, CoOp

The first is now a solicitor and the next is a physiotherapist. The chippy, the dry cleaner and the funeral parlour are still there. The greegrocer is now a cafe. The CoOp is empty (moved to larger premises across the road which used to be a pub). The rest have been converted to residential use.
A parade is one side of the street only, and it tends to be in an all-built-at-once homogenous style. Even if there are shops on the other side of the street, they can't be part of the same parade.
The principle shopping street in Kingsbury (ur-Metroland) is a veritable parade of parades, facing each other on both sides of the street.
I miss the hardware shops. Just a few cling on, but it's hard to see how they can pay the rent. It was good, in theory, to be able to buy, say, three washers if that's how many you wanted. Nowadays you mostly have to buy a bag containing 10, 40 or 100, depending on how many Screwfix HQ thinks you might need.
The Corner Plaice is a very decent chippy, does ice creams too.
Woodgrange Road E7 is an outlier. They literally CPO 6 successful business to demolish & rebuild then boarded them up for two years, sold on the plot with planning permission and have only recently started to build the new retail units with 50+ hutch flats above them. We were promised six new retail units but as soon as planning permission was granted they put in an alteration for signage for a Lidl. The Methodist Church has been boarded up for three years & the squatters have managed to set the building on fire three times so far!
till about 25 years ago, if you wanted newspapers or magazines you had to go to a newsagent. Such things weren't available in supermarkets. Then there must have been some sort of national agreement and suddenly we could get the papers/magazines as part of the Supermarket shopping. That led to closure of some newsagents and others changed from the traditional CTN (confectionery/tobacco/news) pattern to become mainly sweet shops. The restrictions on smoking also led to less demand for tobacco products, and these were sold at supermarkets too.










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