The High Street, Boosbeck. The large triple-fronted shop on the right of the image was a branch of the Skelton Co-operative. The floor above was known as ’Rushby’s Rooms’; where a sewing and knitting workshop was organised as part of a scheme to give unemployed miners and their families an alternative source of work and support. Chronicled in ”Heartbreak Hill” by Malcolm Chase & Mark Wyman. Judy Last advises: “My great grandparents, Edwin and Grace Tuck ran the Grocer & Drapers shop at 37 High Street, Boosbeck and were there from at least 1877. Previous to this Edwin has been an Ironstone Miner in Normanby (1871 census). By 1899 Edwin had passed the shop on to his youngest son, Simon (known as Sim). Sim continued to run the Grocers in the High Street and was there in the 1911 census. His mother continued to live at 44 High Street until her death in 1927.” Evelyn Jepson adds: “My grandmother, Eva Gertrude Jepson, owned one of the row houses on the Stanghow road. Before she owned it they said it was a funeral home, and the front window was a viewing facility. I know the place was haunted. Both upstairs in the bathroom, and in the viewing section of the house. And it was told us kids that if you hear any tapping at night, it were the poor miners trapped in the mines that never got out, as the tunnels went under the dwellings.” Paul comments: “It seems the road drops down in level in front of the public house and the building below it is no longer there in our modern era. I wondered why the main road falls away at a certain point.” Whilst Angela List-Evans asks: “Chase and Whyman (in ‘Heartbreak Hill’ stated that the shop was empty in 1933 and then Boosbeck furniture moved in as part of a Pennyman social enterprise scheme. Does anyone know why the Skelton Coop moved out or was it just a spare room that was empty? The sewing and knitting group was upstairs as part of Ruth Pennyman’s scheme.”
Image courtesy of the Pem Holiday Collection and Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum; thanks to Judy Last, Evelyn Jepson, Paul and Angela List-Evans for the updates.
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