This photo from the early 20th century was taken at the front the W. Sawyer and Sons shop in Eynsham. As we saw in April’s Object of the Month, Sawyers was established in 1856 and traded for 115 years. The building no longer exists, as it was demolished just a few years after the shop’s closure.
Sawyers was a veritable emporium, selling everything from groceries and British wines to crockery, clothes, gardening products, stationery and medicines, bicycles – and even motorcycles, at one point! They used to deliver to local villages – Sutton, Stanton Harcourt, Northmoor, Church Hanborough, Long Hanborough, Freeland, Cassington and Swinford – using a horse and cart (see the cart in the photo).
From the mid-20th century onwards, changing shopping habits in England put a lot of pressure on independent shops like Sawyers. In an article in the Oxford Mail from August 1971, the shop’s last custodian, William Sawyer, said, ‘All these supermarkets and things have mucked things up. I offered the shop to my daughters if they wanted it, but they didn’t, and I can’t say I blame them.’ The doors were locked for the last time in that same month.