Lidstones Butchers, Kingsbridge, have closed their doors after first opening in the 1800s.
The business was started by John Lidstone (1769-1854) who was a ‘driver and carrier of mail’ and married Rachel Grant of Aveton Gifford in 1803. Around 1820 he opened a butchers shop behind the King of Prussia, now an antiques shop, after buying five sheep at the market.
The markets at the time took place in Dodbrooke, now the small outside space of the Regal Club on Church Street, and in Kingsbridge at the junction between Fore Street and Duncombe Street, before coalescing and taking place at Cattle Market car park behind the Quayside Leisure Centre.
Later in the 1800s, Lidstones took over their current location at 70 Fore Street, running both shops at the same time, before permanently moving to the premises on Fore Street.
During this time, all the butchers shops had their own slaughterhouses. Lidstone’s slaughterhouse was located where Norton Brook Medical Centre is now, meaning animals were bought at the market, driven up Fore Street and across the fields where Fore Street car park, Tescos, Cookworthy Road and Barnfield Walk now are.
They were kept in a field before being taken into the slaughterhouse and then the meat had to be transported back, sometimes with a pony and trap, but mostly with pure man power, with the workers carrying half carcasses from the slaughterhouse, across the fields and up Church Steps into the rear of the shop on their backs.
Family legend says that during the First World War, Thomas Marshall Lidstone gave up the business, not the premises, to a Mr Northmore, who allowed it to run down to a point at which Thomas Marshall Lidstone told his war-returning son Henry Grant Lidstone not to try and continue it.
Henry Grant (1888-1972) ignored his father and subsequently ran the business with his son, also Henry Grant (1919-2008) and prospered for the ensuing 47 years, retiring at the age of 76.
The Lidstone family ceased having an interest in the butchers shop in June 1966 when Henry Grant Lidstone, known as Harry, sold out to the Kemsley family from Kent. They ran the shop along with Rossiters Butcher’s Shop opposite Lidstones, which is now STARK, which they purchased at the same time.
Ann Lidstone, who passed on her great knowledge of the history of the family and the business, said it “would have been nice” for a Lidstone to become involved in the business again, and said that people come from “all over the country” to have their hogs pudding and sausages, which she describes as “second to none”.
Apparently the hogs pudding recipe that Lidstones are still using was invented by Tom Lidstone, Harry’s older brother, during the Second World War after he was bombed out of Plymouth in 1941.
The current owners, Steve, Jane and Tim Hubbard, are closing the business when their lease came to an end after 15 years. Steve said: “We would like to thank all our customers, sorry we’ve had to go but we couldn’t carry on.
“We’re running the farm and the shop in Plymstock too, and we feel we’ve done our bit in keeping the business going for another 15 years.”
You can still visit Lidstones Butchers at their shop on the Broadway in Plymstock and it is expected that another butcher will take over the lease at 70 Fore Street.