First published in Warminster Wylye Valley And District Recorder, December 2007:
Many Recorder readers will remember Hibbs’ Antiques, at 166 Boreham Road, Warminster – a well known business which occupied the premises for 20 years and was run for 17 of those years by husband and wife team Norman and Elizabeth Hibbs, from Heytesbury. Norman died on 28th December 1994, and Liz continued trading at Boreham for another 2½ years before deciding to call it a day. It was in May 1997 that Elizabeth Hibbs announced that she would be closing the shop two months later, in July, so Danny Howell, ever keen to record some local history, went along with his camera and cassette-recorder, to capture on photographs and audio tape, the final throws of two decades of trading at Boreham. This is what he wrote:
Liz Hibbs may be lacking in height, but her good-natured and likeable manner is ‘head and shoulders’ above lots of people, and when I called at the antiques shop at Boreham I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find her welcoming and friendly. In fact, that’s how I’ve always known her to be. She didn’t mind answering my questions and she seemed keen to tell all about the shop and some of the things that had happened along the way. She began with her recollections of the early days.
“Norman and I moved into the shop in June 1977. It had previously been Mr. Boscawen’s grocery shop and we took out a lease with him,” said Liz. “Prior to taking the shop, Norman and I used to have a stall at various antiques markets, including Bristol, Henstridge, Salisbury, Bournemouth and Frome. We had got interested in old things.”
“Before we went into antiques Norman ran his own building business, based at Heytesbury, and I was a housewife. I was into self-sufficiency, keeping goats, geese, chickens, rabbits, and ducks and I did gardening. We grew a lot of vegetables. This was at Coombe Castle, Heytesbury, where I still live now (1997). We did the antiques markets for four or five years before taking the shop.”
Had the shop been worthwhile? “It’s been successful, or we wouldn’t be here now,” said Liz. “The recession in the 1980s and the opening of the Warminster Bypass, in 1988, affected our trade, but we gained because we did a lot of restoring old pine. We didn’t know what would happen when the Bypass opened, it was a worry, but we survived.”
“A feature about antique shops in the Sunday Observer noted that ours was the shop ‘where you can get the bizarre and the unusual.’ The most unusual thing we sold here was a stuffed goat. I bought it on a Saturday, sold it to a Bath antiques dealer on the Monday, and he sold it again at Bath Market on the Wednesday. Norman used to say that he could sell anything to anyone. Once, when two Dutch cyclists stopped at the shop, Norman thought he could sell them a chest of drawers. How they would take their purchase away didn’t come into it. As it happened, Norman sold them an ancient wheelchair, which he took to the Railway Station for them and put on a train for the first part of the journey back to Holland.”
“A famous customer we had was Johnny Cash. One Friday, a big camper wagon pulled up outside the shop. Two Americans got out and had a look at some guns we had in the window. They came in and went out again. And then, Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter came into the shop. They were all together. They were doing a tour of Britain, doing concerts. They spent just over £360. They bought a Chinese water clock and some pictures. Johnny Cash was dressed all in black and he was just very ordinary. There was nothing different about him.”
“The down side of the shop has been three or four burglaries, during one of which we had a thousand pounds worth of jewellery taken. And we had an arson attack once. We think that was Animal Rights people, because we had some stuffed animals in cases, and someone had been in the shop not long before and made some threats because we had them.”
“Liz, however, is an animal lover, hence her involvement with smallholding before she got the buzz for antiques. And she once acquired two live cats during a house clearance, who both became members of the Hibbs’ household.
One day, at the shop, in 1979, Liz didn’t feel well. Unbeknown to her, she was suffering a brain haemorrhage. Luckily, Phyl Butler, landlady at the nearby Yew Tree, passed by and noticed her collapsed on the floor. Phyl called the emergency services and Liz soon received medical attention. She made a complete recovery. “I owe Phyl my life,” said Liz. “If it wasn’t for her I probably wouldn’t be here today.”
And was there anything particular that Liz was fond of out of the antiques the business had seen? She quickly replied: “My speciality has always been Victorian china, but I also collect old postcards of Warminster and Heytesbury. I have several hundred cards.”
After telling me that she would be closing the shop door for the last time on 31st July 1997, Liz paid tribute to Mike and Jean Ogden, at nearby Boreham Post Office. She said: “They’ve been good friends and a great support, looking after the shop when I’ve had to go away.”
Coincidentally, Mike and Joan bade farewell to the Post Office the day before Liz shut up shop. The Ogdens are headed off for a happy retirement in Westbourne, Bournemouth.
Had Liz any regrets about her decision to shut up shop? She said: “I shall miss the people. You never knew who was going to walk in through the door. I’ve met lots of friends. We’ve had regulars who have come in time and time again.”
And the future? Liz concluded: “I hope in the future to do bed and breakfast and I still might do the odd antique fair. I can’t leave it alone. I can’t stop looking for things. There are always things to look for. That’s the fun of it. Old things are very interesting.”
The antiques shop did, indeed, close on 31st July 1997, and a week later Liz made her appreciation known with an advert in the Warminster Journal. It read: “THANKS. I would like to thank all the people of Warminster and district for their custom and support over the last 20 years, for my antique shop at 166 Boreham Road. I would especially like to mention my dear friend Phyl Butler for her kindness to me, we have shared many, happy, sad, tragic and funny moments. She is a really great lady. Thanks also to Angie, Steve, Kath, Vic, Ginny, Jenny and Chloe for the surprise champagne and strawberrys on Wednesday afternoon, and to all my friends for their gifts, cards and best wishes. Yours sincerely, ELIZABETH HIBBS.”
BUSINESS HOURS
Open most days about 9 or 10
Occasionally as early as 7, but some days
as late as 12 or 1.
We close about 5.30 or 6
Occasionally about 4 or 5, but
Sometimes as late 11 or 12.
Some days or afternoons, we
Aren’t here at all and lately
I’ve been here just about all the time,
Except when I’m some place else.
But I should be here then, too.
The wording above is stated on a handwritten notice on a sheet of white paper, which could be seen in the window to the left of the door of the antiques shop at 166 Boreham Road, Warminster, during the early part of 1997. In June 1997 another handwritten line was added to the above, which read ‘Dulce est desipere in loco.’ Translated this means: “It is pleasant to unbend and play the fool now and then.”
