Coffee Shop In Duke Street

A Memory of Chelmsford.

The smell of coffee probably wafted out from the shop at No.10 Duke Street. Basil Harrison was the town centre's grocer for many years who specialised in coffee. His coffee grinding machine stood just behind the shop window from where he could watch the passers-by and the town's changing life. He left diaries of all the observations he had made over the decades. Many of his earliest memories were put together by his daughter, Prue James, in book form under the title of A Duke Street Childhood - growing up in Chelmsford, 1900 - 1918. This was published in 2001.