More family connections

More family connections

My great grand father's fish shop is still there...

I had another "wow" moment today.....

I had packed the car up and checked out of my  hotel and was thinking of heading for Leicester in fact I had even set Gaby Garmin to take me to Leicester, and as I came to the roundabout outside my hotel I saw the sign to Market Harborough and remembered that my cousin Josephine had told me the location of the fish shop that used to be my grandfather'swas in the main street of M-H. So I actually went round the roundabout totally, and pulled back in to the hotel and reset the GPS for Market Harborough.


And I was so glad I did...

I went back into town and parked the car and this time I found a  local who knew stuff!

I asked her if she knew where Martin Hobbs shop was, and she said "you mean the fishmongers???" So I started getting excited- making the connection between my great grandfather and his trade as a fishmonger and this shop...

So I found the shop, and there on the wall was a picture of JB Hunt fishmongers... the original shop!
It was a mind boggling moment for me, that I was standing in the same shop as that owned by my great grandfather...

This is the original pic that had a copy on the wall

 When I went  in and told the owner of the shop that was my Great grandfather, she gave me a great welcome and even gave me a cup of coffee. Her father (Martin Hobbs) had owned the business for 45 years and had bought it from Mac fisheries who had bought it from TB Hunt.

This present day shop uses the same display cabinet that TB Hunt had used, and the awning structures were still the same...

TB Hunt's fish shop Market Harborough

TB Hunt's fish shop Market Harborough

TB Hunt's fish shop Market Harborough

Photo on the wall in TB Hunt's fish shop Market Harborough

After that great excitement my  next task was to visit Leicester. I was wondering' "will I wont I...? but I thought I can't come all this way and not visit Leicester. But I had been warned that most of the significant places in the city of Leicester had all been pulled down or were replaced by other buildings. So to be honest, I wasn't too fussed either way.

Anyway, Gaby Garmin got me to Leicester quite easily, but she took me via a round about way and I ended up more in the back streets rather than in the city centre. And I couldn't see any easy places to park, and so I decided to just keep going and not stop. I  would've had to do another lap to get to the city centre and it was just as easy to keep driving. So my visit to Leicester was very brief!

Tonight I'm staying with my cousin Josephine..

Josephine

who lives in Whissendine, about 30 miles out of Leicester. She had suggested that I might like to take the scenice route to her place, which  I did and went through a couple of lovely little villages. One of them was called Uppingham, and the pic I took there was of the Post office, which funnily enough was the original place my great grandmother Ellen (TB Hunt's wife) had a job, working as a maid for a doctor, when it was a doctor's house.

Uppingham - Post office is the building on the right

I stopped on the way to take a few pics of the scenery but my camera doesn't really do it justice.

Near Uppingham

Near Uppingham

So, it's been a day based around family of different generations... I'm loving this adventure of discovery and finding places thatdefine my roots. Josephine has been able to trace back our family to at least 2 or 3 more generations than I was able to do. It's amazing to think that all those people are part of what we call family....