The shops here are about the same, only modernised, and lowered. There
used to be a butcher’s, baker’s, stationer’s (which was then the post
office), poulterer’s, carpenter’s, tailor’s, Rose and Crown Inn,
chandler’s shop, hairdresser’s, fruiterer’s, and grocer’s, at the corner.
The post office was afterwards on the Green, and then removed to the
stationer’s, where it is now.
High Cross-lane, now called High Cross-road, was a very different place
to what it is now. As the word lane indicates, it was a very quiet
place. On the south side there were a good many old cottages, looking
more in keeping with their surroundings then they do at the present day.
Then came two detached houses, followed by fields till one came to the
old cottages at the commencement of The Hale. On the north side, near
the High-road, there were stables, and out-buildings jutting out, which
made the roadway just there very narrow. From these sheds there was a
continuation of fields almost to the end of the lane.