High Bridge

A Memory of Spalding.

When I was very young, just before 1950, I can remember High Bridge was like this without the footbridge beside it. Without so much traffic it was safe to walk over the main bridge. Then the river was tidal and had banks of mud on either side of the water. The white building seen above the bridge was Berrills clothes shop which opened at the beginning of the century. I can remember an area given up to the most wonderful Christmas display with all kinds of special things, at the time when such things were almost unknown. The shop on the left was Walden's grocery shop began by Fred Walden at the beginning of the century. Any-one standing here in the early 1950 would be conscious of the sound of the rooks which lived in trees just beyond the building just seen to the right. That was Johnson's, an ironmongers, which clung to the river bank. Now it is impossible to belief that such a large building stood there.