Category: Trade: Shopkeeper

Everything Was A Penny A Slab At Sergeant Oborn’s Shop, Warminster

An anecdote by Mary Hatton; from her recollections Sights, Sounds And Smells Of Bygone Days, penned in September 1970:

An appetising smell I have overlooked was from the shop which was part of what is now Heading Mitchell [at the High Street, Warminster]. It must have been a very old shop indeed because my mother knew it when she was a child. It was a very small, dark shop and one had to go down two or three steps to enter. It was kept by Sergeant Oborn and he was a huge man, well over six feet tall. He only sold slabs of rice, peas and bread puddings (all like rocks), and faggots. Everything was a penny a slab. How he made a living I cannot think. You could not buy sliced cooked meat in those days.

Visitors To Warminster Express Surprise At The Shopping Facilities

The Warminster Official Guide, issued under the auspices of Warminster Urban District Council, published August 1936, noted:

Visitors have expressed surprise at the shopping facilities, as, having to cater for a very large district, the tradesmen are able to provide stocks above the average for towns of this size. There is no need to go outside the town to get satisfaction for any article desired. Especially pleasing is the neatness of the shopping displays, the cleanliness is proverbial, and dairy produce is always fresh direct from neighbouring farms.

Second Conviction For Felony

From The Warminster Herald, Saturday 18th January 1873:

Police – Town Hall. Saturday. – Before the Jon. W.L. Holmes a’Court, and Nathaniel Barton, Esq.

Emma Carr, an elderly woman of Warminster Common, wearing a green shade over one eye, was charged with stealing 2 pig’s eye-pieces, a piece of cheese, and a piece of lard, value 4/6, from Mr. Ransome’s shop, Warminster Common, on 7th January.

Lucy Ransome, daughter of the prosecutor, stated that on the day in question, she was in her father’s shop when the prisoner came in during the evening. She bought several things and then went out, and returned and bought some more things, and after she was served she kept lingering about the shop while other customers were being served. Witness saw the prisoner pick up a pig’s eye-piece and put it under her cloak. She told her father, who sent for P.C. Wheeler, and on the prisoner being searched in the shop the articles mentioned in the charge were found upon her. Mr. Ransome, the prosecutor, corroborated his daughter.

The prisoner pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to one calendar month with hard labour. This appeared to be the prisoner’s second conviction for felony.

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