Memories of record and music shops

You may remember that during August this blog celebrated its 10th anniversary, and when I asked around my friends and family if anyone would like to write a guest blog post in celebration of that birthday, I wasn’t short of offers! I managed to host around 11 of these articles during the actual month of August, but there were others that weren’t quite ready for the timing of the event, and yet others for which I was provided with information, but which needed me to actually pull the post together. 

This post is one of the latter … I have known my collaborator for many, many years initially as he used to deliver my post!! About 13 years ago, imagine my surprise when we bumped into each other in Canons Ashby, a National Trust property near Daventry! Since then, we’ve often chatted about places that interest us, which of course includes Loughborough! One or other of us can often be found down town, often on a Friday morning, perusing the market stalls!

We recently shared a bit of a reminisce about Loughborough’s music and record shops, and this article is based on those memories.

A medley of singles bags!

Back in 1978 when I first came to Loughborough, I very quickly found the nearest music shop and record shop. Down on The Rushes, in what is now a Thai restaurant, was a music shop called Groops, which I frequented on and off. At the back of the shop, I seem to remember they offered musical instrument tuition. At some point, but I can’t quite remember when, the building became the Thai Grand restaurant, so the tuition part of Groops moved to the upstairs of a premises on Aumbrey Gap, and was renamed Charnwood Music Tuition. Meanwhile, a new music shop opened on Leicester Road. The fate of Aumbrey Gap was sealed, however, when the inner relief road was built, and the site of the music tuition place is now that part of Pinfold Gate / Barrow Street that is home to a massive new glass house for students. The music shop on Leicester Road, however, is still there today.

Charnwood Music Tuition on Aumbrey Gap

Being built adjacent to the Phantom, with an extension onto the former Barrow Street

Just music on Leicester Road

Meanwhile, down in the Charnwood Precinct as it was then known, there was a tiny little shop packed full of singles and LPs, just on the right as you entered the centre from Market Place. For a small town like Loughborough, surrounded as it is by three largeish cities (Leicester, Nottingham, and Derby), all of which had at least an HMV shop, and perhaps a Virgin, and sheet music shops too, the independent record shop was a vital part of Loughborough’s music scene, and this little number didn’t disappoint, with loads of stock and knowledgeable staff – one of whom is my collaborator in this post!!

A Castle Records singles paper bag

A Castle Records singles paper bag against an A4 pink sheet for scale!

A couple of years after arriving in Loughborough, I found myself working in W H Smith, in the record department, and what a joy that was, especially in the run up to Christmas! At this time, Smiths was in the precinct, where it had been since the opening of the shopping area around 1973. Prior to that Smiths was on Swan Street, where the Halifax building society is today. Anyway, the record department in the precinct Smiths was were situated on the ground floor, to the left, at the back, and we sold a lot of the James Galway LP that particular Christmas!

Around those years there were also other shops selling records: like Smiths, it wasn’t their core business. Such shops included Boots the chemist, Rumbelows the electrical shop, Merretts the newsagents, Woolworths, Tesco’s Home and Wear shop (which used to be on the corner of Granby Street), and probably more! And not forgetting the market, of course, where over the years there have been a variety of stalls selling records.

A Rumbelows singes paper bag

A Woolworths singles paper bag

A Woolworths singles paper bag

But what about before I came to Loughborough? Well, my friend and collaborator who has lived in Loughborough all his life, has told me about many of these shops! There was Eugene Cooper, listed in the 1962 street directory as a record dealer, trading at number 3 Ward’s End. After the death of her husband, Eugene, Mrs Cooper opened a shop near the corner of Sparrow Hill and Meadow Lane. Also in the 1962 directory is Cyril Fairley at number 13 on Church Gate, listed as a radio and television engineer.

I’ve mentioned George Hames’ music shop in relation to what I think might have been a collaboration with Clarence George Starkey, down at the Odeon in the 1930s when Hames’ Accordian band was involved in the marketing of the cinema, in a previous post. If I remember rightly, in the 1940s, Hames’ shop was listed as being at number 57 Market Street; in the 1950s, at number 60 Market Street, and in the 1960s, back to being at number 57 Market Street. But, of course, these may have been the same shop, just with street numbering changes, or the directories – which often include mild inaccuracies – might just have been confused!

Front of a George Hames singles paper bag

Rear of a George Hames singles paper bag

Another music shop I’ve written about in an earlier post is Paltridge’s, on Church Gate. An entry in a 1901 directory lists Paltridge as a ‘Music Dealer’ at number 24 Church Gate, but in the 1927 directory, this is listed as being at number 3, and is called a ‘Music Warehouse’. Whether Paltridge the dealership or warehouse sold sheet music, records, or both, is not clear.

Other shops remembered, although I’m not quite sure when they were around, were El Cid, which was either in the yard of the former Cross Keys (now the Phantom, Leicester Road), or in the little shop just in front of it, that was a jewellers when I came to Loughborough. Selectasdisc, which was at number 3 High Street, where Macfisheries used to be. Uptown Records was on Market Street; Tracks was on High Street; Music Zone was on Market Place; Phat Beats was in the Nottingham Road / Sparrow Hill area; there was also a shop called In the Groove, but I’m not sure where, and also one on Ashby Road, on the same side of the road as the Old English Gentleman, where the owner was particularly focussed on the Stiff record label. 

And coming to the period after I came to Loughborough, and the more recent times, we have quite a selection!

The Left-Legged Pineapple, run by Jason White, was opened on the corner of Fennel Street and Lemyngton Street, in a property that was vacated when Warner’s Corner left. The LLP might have originally traded from the antique shop next door to Warner’s Corner, which was the family’s business. Apparently, Jason’s father used to have a shop on Sparrow Hill, the Loughborough Record Centre and Soul Hole.

Andy’s Records was a huge shop in the precinct, where there has most recently been a clothes shop.

Ghost sign uncovered July 2023

The shop on Derby Square (or is it Ashby Square) called the Winged Ape, had previously been a record shop specialising in heavy metal CDs and LPs.

One of the shops that used to be in The Rushes in its fairly early days was Zavvi, although this might have started life as a Virgin store. The Rushes opened around 2007.

Wow! Such a lot of music and record shops have come and gone in the town over the years! With a resurgence in the popularity of vinyl, we can now find these at the vintage market on a Friday, and in some of the town’s charity shops.

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Dyer, Lynne (2023). Memories of record and music shops. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/10/memories-of-record-and-music-shops.html [Accessed 8 October 2023]

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