An advert for Hodgson and Downs, Wine and Spirit Merchants dating c1893. I thought this quite topical with all the renovations in progress at number 42.
Image and details courtesy of Jonathan May.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Recently turned up a screw bottle stopper on my farm near Maltby
Hi David, I’ve just found a Hodgson and Downs bottle stopper in the beck that runs through Maltby…does your farm have access to the beck by any chance?
I have a green bottle with HODGSON AND DOWNS with their Logo on it Stockton & Middlesbrough and H & D on back of bottle
There’s also a price, 3/6 a bottle!
I have a brass ashtray with “Hodgson and Town’s old scotch whiskey” imprinted in it. At last I know where that was. Many thanks.
My father took on a ‘Christmas Club’ agency from Hodgson & Downs during the 1950’s. There not being too many off-licences or other retail outlets, around back then, our neighbours would pay money in each week and later make a selection of drinks they required for the festive-season. This being made from a single, very comprehensive list of stocked beverages, that was circulated amongst them. The week before Christmas, this ‘shipping order’ would be delivered by H&D to our home in wooden crates, filling the front room. I can still recall gazing at the exotic ‘adult’ labels and wondering what each one tasted like. Our next door neighbour (an ex-merchant mariner) used to order a bottle of ‘Lemon Hart’ Rum, whilst his wife ordered several boxes of the then very popular b&w TV-promoted drink, known as ‘Babycham’! I wonder, just how many women actually used the words of those long-forgotten early TV commercials, i.e “I’d rather have a Babycham,..”? For myself, I was always allowed a small glass of ‘Gaymers’ sweet-cider with my Christmas Dinner, at 12yrs-old, it made me feel quite grown-up!