08/09/2026
Fortnightly Photo – We’ve lost a lot of the village shops and amongst those that remain there have been many changes. Many folk will remember two by the Leicester Road crossing as being Braybrook’s Paper shop and the Post Office.
Today Braybrook’s has become the post office as well as still being a paper shop and general store whilst the former Post Office is now a Turkish Barbers.
One of our members remembers that “Along the road from the butcher’s, Stan Braybrook’s brother, Graydon, had a paper shop which sold - besides papers, comics and magazines - ci******es, sweets and stationery. We had our papers delivered from there and I remember going into the shop each week with our payment card to pay the bill. Another vivid memory is of rushing down there on a Saturday evening at about a quarter to six to wait for the “Green un” – the sports version of the Leicester Mercury which would be delivered to the shop by a man in a van who would hurl the bundle of papers from the van as he slowed up – but never stopped – outside the shop. Buying the “Green un” was vital for my Dad to check his football pools against the scores if we had been to Filbert Street and hadn’t got back in time to catch the results on the TV - via the teleprinter of course!”
Both shops have had a long and varied history and the first occupants we believe were, in what is now the Barbers, William Bancroft, a boot and shoemaker. He and his wife moved to the village in the 1890’s setting up at first by the Free Trade Inn that stood near to where the Leicester Road flats are today and later moving to these then modern premises. The other shop was run as a general dealer’s by Clara Billson, assisted following the death of her husband, by her niece and nephew, Samuel and Rachel Hewitt.
Our photos show the shops about 1910 and today.
There is more about the village shops on our website at https://mountsorrelarchive.org/category/commerce/shops
