Corts Ltd Of Cheapside

A Memory of Leicester.

I've put "1948" as the date as that's about the earliest I remember Corts Ltd, on the corner of Cheapside and Silver Street in this photo. The ironmongers and builders merchants business (formerly Cort & Paul until some time in the 1920s/1930s) was owned by my grandfather David Charles who leased the premises from Stead & Simpson. I remember with great fondness entering the shop via a door (that looks as if has now entirely gone from the modern building) on the corner facing the clock tower. Upstairs, tucked away from the sales floor, my grandfather had a small office with an open fire and hunting pictures on the walls. One I particularly remember was entitled "Handsome is as handsome does" and was of a bit of an old nag bravely jumping a country hedge. The builders merchants part of the building was on the furthest side away from the clock tower where there was a large door onto the street (High Street?) into which lorries could reverse to load. I can't remember which side was Cheapside and which was Silver Street, but just down one of them was the open market and the best shop in the world for us - Walkers pork pies - where we'd buy huge pies that we took back to Norfolk. The business moved to London Road near the Midland Station in the mid 1960s when the lease on the town centre shop expired and anyway it made sense to relocate further out for the lorry-focussed merchanting business.