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.

                                                                     

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

 

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 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 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 with the sorting office being another local activity. As one might imagine, local deliveries never left the village and were delivered the same day.  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 remain today - 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:-

 

                      

 

Other Wrentham links:

Wrentham Band can be found at www.wrenthamband.org and the Wrentham Village website can be found at www.wrentham.org.uk