1 Gowrie Street

Inside the shop around 1980

Philip Owen

This house on the corner of King Street and Gowrie Street has until fairly recently always been a shop. For most of the time it was a grocer’s shop, but in its earliest days in the 1850s and 60s it appears to have housed a bakery. Tenants were long-lasting: between 1880 and 1972 there were only three different shop-keepers.

Bain’s Shop

Mr and Mrs Bain ran the shop from 1947 until 1974 and many local residents still have fond memories of spending their pocket money in Bain’s. Our photo shows Mr Bain on the right.

In the 1970s the Owens took it over and they ran it under the Spar banner. It was converted to a house around 1990.