The Shop Museum

The Shop Museum, found in Wrentham High Street, is set out in the style and appearance of a local 'corner' shop of the type that could be have been found everywhere up and down the country 50 to 80 years ago. It contains the sale goods, equipment, ledgers and display items that would have been on sale and part of our everyday life prior to the days of supermarkets, freezers and the mass ownership of the motor car.

Our extremely unusual and fascinating Shop Museum can very easily be found, as it is situated on the A12 in the middle of the Suffolk village of Wrentham near the very popular seaside town of Southwold.

Wrentham is a village of approximately 1000 people straddling the A12 and centred around a junction on the A12 London/Ipswich/Lowestoft/Gt. Yarmouth trunk road. The junction has roads to Southwold, Beccles and Covehithe. Wrentham is steeped in history stretching back to Saxon times and is mentioned in the Doomsday book.

The Shop Museum is an exiting place to come and see a large element of our everyday past, particularly the local daily shopping items, hardware, photographs, household equipment, ration books and childrens games, along with the everyday items needed to run a general shop.

Why not come along and see some of the wartime exhibits? Or the games?

You will be able to see and handle the huge range of display items, ask questions and discuss ideas.

Remember when times were simple, even though in pre-decimal currency there were 12 pence in the shilling and twenty shillings in the pound? When cars and lorries were few and far between, shopping was an everyday occurance and when every village was self sufficient having it's own businesses - the grocer, baker, butcher, dairy, blacksmith, post office and sweet shop? Have a look at some of the old views of Wrentham.

In those days, shopping was an everyday event as it was long before the time of microwaves, fridges, freezers, washing machines or any other 'mod cons'. Shopping was indeed a different way of life with the daily trip to the butcher, baker and grocer. Vegetables were usually grown at home as they were expensive to buy and transport was very limited. Local post was delivered by the postmaster or postmistress, by hand, doing the round on a bicycle or even a horse and cart with the sorting office being another local activity. As one might imagine, local deliveries never left the village and were delivered the same day.

The main post office was originally located in Wangford and the mail was delivered to Wrentham Post Office by pony and trap on a daily basis. If you look at the old photographs on this site you will note that the post office was originally where we now have the Fish and Chip shop and what is now a private house - the overall wooden trim spanning both buildings remains even today. Just stand on the other side of the road and have a look.

Names that have long been forgotten such as Reckitt's Blue, Snowene, DDT, Empire Lamp Oil and Zeebrite remain on the shelves together with household names that are more familiar - Oxo, Huntley and Palmers and Persil, to name but a few.

Come and spend a little time and re-live this era in The Shop Museum at Wrentham where you can be reminded of those days, see the thousands of exhibits from every time period from the turn of the last century to the 1960s.

The museum is set up as an old fashioned corner shop with the owner's desk full of everday items of the period including his newspapers, dip pen, pipe and glasses as well as all of the ration cards, poison licence, identity cards, ledgers and all of the items required to run a shop in bygone days.

Read the shop ledgers, look at the method of pricing, count the old money and have a good look at the many, many exhibits and we welcome questions, queries and all discussion on the exhibits.

Although Christmas and New Year is long over, it was well decorated in Wrentham with both old and newer fashioned trimmings - real trees, lametta, old lights and wooden decorations:-