HE Hill & Son in Heybridge marks 90th birthday this year

HE Hill of Heybridge is one of those local, time-honoured, long established businesses that seems to have been there forever.

It is therefore highly appropriate that their shop is based in a really historic building – or should I more correctly say buildings. Given its location, you might think their address is The Square, but it is, in fact, numbers 1-5 The Street.

As a group, the structure(s) are quite rightly Grade II Listed and, although once combined, date from different periods.

The earliest part is number 1 (the left hand side as you look at it) with those distinctive (later) scalloped barge boards up in its eves. It dates from around 1500 and was originally a cross wing to an equally ancient building.

The wing itself was either once the parlour (a reception room-cum-public space) or the solar (private living and sleeping quarters).

Attached to it, albeit at a slightly different angle that follows the line of the highway, is number 3. This is a bit later – late 16th Century, with a number of 19th Century alterations.

It stands on the footprint of a former open hall and has a characterful tiled roof and a couple of (now) blind windows.

Finally, to the right of it (with a continuation of the same roof line) is a now entirely separate house (number 5).

Today, 1 and 3 form the shop-cum-showroom, with a modern (20th Century) ground floor frontage. But that wasn’t always the case.

HE Hill and Son in 1954 (Image: permission Kevin Fuller)

The run of buildings in this part of Heybridge is really special. What is today the Bengal Nights Indian restaurant, at number 4 The Square, was once the Half Moon pub, opened in 1769.

Next door, at 6 The Square, was once a provision merchants – initially Harrington and then a branch of F Luckin Smith Ltd.

Arriving at the group that now forms Hills – prior to their time at number 1 - was Charles Belcher’s cycle shop. He ran the business from 1886 and is listed at number 1 up to at least 1920.

The Belchers eventually moved into the car business and went on to own and run Bates in Spital Road (now replaced by Cooper Court).

At number 3 was the hay and straw dealer, Arthur Harris (c.1900). During his time, the front of the building was covered in colourful enamel advertising signs, including for Spratts Bird Seeds.

After Harris, the Woodcrafts were there, operating firstly a chandlers and then a tailors. It went on to be (in the 1930s) Davis the tobacconists.

Number 5 was a private house, consisting of the three windows that you can still see on the first floor, a central door on the ground floor with a window either side (the left hand one has now gone).

The 'HE', of HE Hill & Son, was Horace Edgerton Hill (1878-1955), a ladies tailor from Stoke Newington. The '& Son' was Cecil Edgerton Hill, born in Dalston in 1908 (and only died in 2000).

When Cecil married Eunice Ada (née Webb) in 1934, he gave his address as The Square, Heybridge, and his occupation as a draper.

HE Hill & Son is still going strong today (Image: Stephen Nunn)

It was Cecil who started a popular tally business (selling goods on credit). He was based at number 5, which was then rented from Luckin Smith (who also owned number 3).

He sold clothes and footwear and would deliver these and collect his regular payments by bike, often journeying miles across the Dengie in one direction and north towards Colchester in the other. (He would later have a van, but this was apparently nowhere near as reliable as his bike!)

On the eve of the Second World War, Cecil ("travelling credit draper and furnisher”), Eunice (born in Islington in 1911) and their young son, John Middleton Hill (born in Hackney in 1938) were living at number 5.

When Cecil went off to do his bit for King and country, father Horace and wife Eunice ran the business.

My mum and late Nan regularly bought stuff on “the never never” from Hills, as did many local residents during the austerity years of the war and post-war.

The Hills diversified and expanded into numbers 1 and 3. Son John joined the business in 1955 and he went on to marry Maureen (née Godden) in 1965.

Along with their daughter, Loretta Jane, they are still directors of the company.

Today, their familiar showrooms at 1 and 3 display a large range of affordable furniture, carpets, other flooring and appliances (or white goods as they are known).

The stability of their offer is epitomised by their telephone number – Maldon 364 in the 50s and 60s, 3364 in the early 70s, 53364 in the late 70s and now 853364.

They are still renowned for their friendly, reliable, prompt and above all local service.

Friends of ours recently furnished their complete house courtesy of Hills and have nothing but praise. I am sure that 'HE' would be proud the family name is still garnering that well deserved reputation.