Nostalgic memories of Droitwich Spa's local history
Share your own memories of Droitwich Spa and read what others have said
For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.
Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.
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Displaying Memories 11 - 20 of 28 in total
I like to say I was born in the Raven though it wasn't strictly true as I was born in a nursing home at Stourport. But my mum was the housekeeper there and my dad was handyman, and we lived in a flat in the Clarendon which was the Annexe at the bottom/High St end of the Raven. In those days there were lots of elderly people who lived there, some of them retired service people or elderly ...see more
This view is of Queen Street, just before the junction with High Street. The TOBACCO shop building is still there and is now a newsagent. The properties between this and the Royal Exchange were demolished and replaced with modern buildings, probably in the 1970s.
The electrical business, Abel and Smith, provided a long defunct service of recharging low voltage batteries (lead acid 'accumulators') ...see more
The black and white half-timbered building in the photograph was The Gable House, owned by my late grandmother, Nancy Hawkes and her sister, Hilda Cook. The house was run as a short-term residential home for patients staying in Droitwich for treatment at the brine baths. The gardens extended to about 3/4 of an acre and along the rear boundary was a timber built bungalow, where I lived with my parents and ...see more
I'm sure that at some time in my youth there was a milk parlour on the left corner of this picture. Mum would treat us after shopping and we could look for the bus to Wychbold, as we drank. They did lime flavour which I hardly see anymore. This building is now a library and used to be a cinema -would need to confirm dates. Over the road to the right, is the Raven Hotel. The hunts used to leave from their carpark ...see more
I used to work here when I was at school, in Droitwich - I used to scrub out the ice-cream tins. Then I used to work in the lido cafe making candy floss, Alan Jones owned the cafe. I would love to hear from anyone who worked there or remembers me, my name is Derek Haydon. I used to live at Packington Crossing. Alan Jones spent time drinking in the Worcestershire Vaults, also known as 'the tap', at the side of ...see more
Here we have two holding tanks where the liquid ice cream would be pumped after being cooked in the vats down below. This is an area in the roof space where the liquid would be pumped over the hot sterilising pipes, seen here in the middle of the picture, hanging down from the roof.
This shows the main entrance to the factory. The machines in the foreground were used to cut the large blocks of ice cream into smaller blocks for processing on the choc ice machine or the wafer ice machine.
This is another rear view of the York-Jones Ice Creamery. It looks as if it was taken from the bridge over the Salwarpe River/Stream. The Stream ran by the back of the Factory.
This is the York-Jones Ice Creamery viewed from Vines Lane. It shows the main entrance for personnel and vans.
In this photo, you can see two machines for chopping ice cream into blocks. Some blocks were small for choc ices and wafer ices. Some were larger for making 'bricks'. In the background, on the left, is my father's (Dick Sinfield) office. On the right, the large door behind the two machines is the door to the large freezer, the 'locker', where the ice creams and lollies would be ...see more
