Shopping Centre c1955, Ashby

Ashby Broadway

Shopping Centre c1955
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I lived in Ashby as a child, and when I started attending Ashby Girls' School on Ashby Turn, I had to walk from the bottom of Ashby to the top every day, rain or shine. When I was 11 in 1948, Broadway was nothing more than an overgrown field, I realise now there must have been houses there that had been pulled down ready to build Broadway, but as a child all I saw was a field fronted by a picket fence. When they built Broadway it was so exciting to go in the Co-op, and climb the central stairs up to the clothing and underwear counters, the stairs were wide and had benches half way up on a wide landing, people including my mother and myself would sit and look over onto the makeup and perfume counter below.