Hine’s Butcher Shop in Slough

Transcript

Talking shop memories

Views of the past by Elias Kupfermann

IF ONE walks down Moorbridge Road, Maidenhead, formerly Bridge Road, most of the historic buildings have disappeared.

On the corner of Moorbridge Road is the Old Gardeners Arms Public House, Maidenhead’s oldest building, which was later converted into offices.

Originally the road connected with the High Street, but a number of buildings were demolished to make way for the Maidenhead Relief Road in the late 1960s. One of these buildings was the butcher’s shop belonging to the Hine Family.

The shop was founded by Thomas Hine in 1855. Mr Hine became a highly respected member of the Maidenhead community and was known as ‘Holy Joe‘ as he was a staunch Methodist and would not frequent Maidenhead’s public houses, despite his shop being right next to one.

Mr Hine met his death by being gored by a heifer while driving back from Reading Market. In the process, he fractured his spine, which led to his death a few days later. The shop was taken over by his son Thomas, also a strict Methodist.

Family accounts give an idea of what the butcher’s premises were like at this time. There was the main shop with a pay desk at the rear, and a door at the rear led to a passageway.

On one side there was a kitchen and further down a room for making sausages, brawn and salting meat.

The passageway led to two living rooms, one of which fronted onto Bridge Street. There were two bedrooms above the shop and adjacent was an arch which led to Hine’s Meadow where some livestock were pastured – the name is now perpetuated by a multi-storey car park.

Thomas Hine died in 1956 at the age of 92, and the business was taken over by his son Thomas. However, seven years later, in 1963, Thomas Hine died and the family business, which had existed for well over a century, was demolished in 1968.

It is now Hine’s Meadow multi-storey car park.

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