Keith and Mary Miller behind the hardware counter on the day of the
handover. [Photo by Jim Nagel]
The hardware shop at 22 Benedict Street, believed to be Glastonbury’s
oldest business, has changed hands as a going concern. The only visible
difference is that till receipts now say Miller’s Hardware instead of
“G. Miller & Son”.
Keith Miller, 77 on St George’s Day, retired on March 24 just before his
date for heart surgery. The operation was a success and he came home
within days, but complications set in from an ulcer and he is back in
intensive care at Bristol Royal Infirmary, slowly improving.
The new owner is Steve Rowse. He too is a familiar face as a Glastonbury
trader: he ran the healthfood store in the High Street from 1989 to
2001.
Town’s oldest business: the Miller dynasty had iron in the blood
Jim Nagel
George Miller (1851–1937), albeit careful with pennies, had one of the
first cars and telephones in Glastonbury. He supported Temperance and
the Liberal party.
Keith Miller was the fourth generation of Millers to run the hardware
shop in Benedict Street. The founder was his great-grandfather, George —
in 1872, the year after his marriage to Sarah Ann Dickinson (although an
advertisement in the 1909 Homeland Handy Guides says it started in
1840).
The couple purchased four old cottages in Benedict Street, according to
the 1931 newspaper report of their 60th wedding anniversary —
“picturesque thatched buildings, with walls six feet thick built of
Abbey stone” — and replaced them with the present brick building.
Later in life, they had nine children and lived at Glencoe in Fishers
Hill. George was a Temperance supporter, stood for Liberal MP, and died
in 1937 at the age of 86.
He owned one of the first cars in Glastonbury — a photograph shows it
with a chauffeur. He also had one of the town’s first telephones. Old
advertisements show the shop’s number as Glastonbury 92. More and more
digits were prefixed: it was Glastonbury 2292 for decades, became 32292
in the mid-70s, and the 92 is still there in today’s 01458 83 2292.
“I met him when I was a nipper,” Keith said. “He used to give me a penny
— an old penny — and I had to save a ha’penny of it. One time I spent
the whole penny on two big marbles, and that got me into trouble.”
George’s son Harold took over the shop, and in his time there was also a
scrap business: sheds extended behind the shop into what is now the
public carpark. George’s other two sons also had hardware businesses:
John (the eldest) at Keyford near Frome, and Willy (Keith’s grandfather)
at Shepton Mallet and then Street. And two of his six daughters married
into hardware families, at Bridport and Burnham. Francie, the youngest,
was prominent at St Benedict’s Church and in the Red Cross.
About 1929 Keith’s father, George Jr, came to work for his uncle Harold.
The time came when he had either to leave or to buy the business, so he
went to Lloyds Bank, where he knew the manager well, and borrowed
£2,000. It took him until the war to pay it off. Meanwhile the manager,
who lived at Baltonsborough, spent his dinner hours sitting in a chair
at the shop to keep an eye on his investment.
A 1909 advertisement shows the front of the brick shop George Miller
built, with dwelling above. It replaced four old thatched cottages in
Benedict Street. The ad’s top line impossibly says “Established 1840” —
11 years before George was born!
Jack Miller, 13 years younger than his brother George Jr, helped in the
shop almost up till his death last April at 94. Another brother, Mac,
was a famous Frome footballer.
Keith, George Jr’s only child, was born in 1930. He left school at 15
and worked at Clarks for four years, helping in the shop and yard when
his father was unwell. Coming fulltime into the business with his father
in the 1950s meant a cut in wages: from £15 a week on piecework to £10
at the shop. George Jr died at the age of 81.
Benedict Street used to be much busier, Keith recalls. “People used to
flock up from the railway station on Tuesdays for the market. I remember
my father saying we had to be prepared for the trade.
“Of course when I came into it, he didn’t sell anything but china, glass
and lamps — and lots and lots of chamberpots. Ladies would come in, see
only me, and say: ‘Is your mother here?’ That was still a big market in
the 1950s.” He recently turned up a receipt in his mother’s handwriting
for an entire dinner set, probably Staffordshire: £2 and 10 shillings.
The sheds behind the shop were the scene of Keith’s most famous
[wartime]{#wartime} exploit: hacksawing into a bullet he and a friend
had found in a German aircraft that crashed at Coxley. The cartridge
exploded, shrapnel whizzed past his ear (he was lucky), and his mother
fainted cold when she saw the blood.
The outbuildings stored lamps and wicks that arrived from Czechoslovakia
packed in straw. When Keith took over the business, he sold off all that
stock as a job lot to a woman from Shepton Mallet, and diversified into
electrical goods, kitchenware, ironmongery and paint.
At that time the High Street had two hardware shops (besides A.W.G.
Curtis & Son farther down Benedict Street, started by Gilbert Curtis in
1924 and still thriving under Roderick and Anita). E.G. Wright was
opposite the post office until 1970. “Stan Palmer came to work for me
when it closed. He was a jolly good salesman: if someone came to buy
paint, he would always ask if they also needed sandpaper, white spirit,
and all the rest.” Checkley’s, which traded until around 1975 in the
premises now owned by Glastonbury Experience, stocked more ironmongery
than Millers at the time. When Keith branched out into tools, “Jack
Checkley didn’t like it very much.”
This sketch, made in 2009 after an old photograph, shows Keith at age 18
outside the family shop in Benedict Street. The artist is
Keith’s son Matthew Miller — contact him if you’d like to commission a
drawing of your own property: (01458) 83 2078.
Keith also started selling fishing gear — rods, reels, bait, maggots.
“That saved our bacon in some lean years.” He was also one of the first
to sell DIY goods — timber, hardboard, plywood, tools — and further
introduced telephones and videos.
Among the Saturday boys who worked in Millers Hardware over the years
were David Titchener (now the photographer) and Max Thurgood, besides
Keith’s sons Matthew and Jonathan.
Will Keith miss the shop? “I certainly will, after 55 years. I walk up
the town and people speak to me, and I scratch my head: ‘Who was that?
They must have been in the shop.’”
Somehow Keith also found time over the years for two stints as St
Benedict’s churchwarden and to play bowls regularly in Street. He looks
forward to more relaxed bowls when he is out of hospital and no longer
has to watch the clock and worry about the shop.
Warren Chapman, who carries on serving customers, with Steve Rowse, the
new owner, in front of the hardware shop. [Photo by Jim
Nagel]
The new owner
Steve Rowse, the new owner of Miller’s Hardware, lives in Roman Way. The
hardware shop “is a fine business”, he said. “I don’t intend to change a
thing, other than maybe a coat of paint.” Warren Chapman and Jamie Allen
will carry on as staff.
Property development is Steve’s main business. He plans to make two
flats above and behind the shop after Keith and Mary move to their new
house in Tythe Street, on the Actis estate.