42 High Street Flitwick

42 High Street September 2017

Today [2017] 42 High Street is occupied by accountancy firm Haines Watts. It is not clear whether the building is new, or simply a thorough modernisation of the façade of an older building which stood on the site. The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting what was then at 42 High Street [DV1/C130/48] found that it was owned and occupied by butchers John Barker and Sons.

Accommodation comprised two reception rooms and a scullery downstairs with three bedrooms upstairs. The shop measured fifteen feet square. Outside were: a cowhouse for one beast; a wood and corrugated iron woodshed; a pony stable; a brick and slate licensed slaughterhouse and yard (“good”); a wood and corrugated iron shed (“falling down”; a wood and corrugated iron piggery and a wood and corrugated iron trap shed. A later hand has added a garage to the list of outbuildings. 

Directories for Bedfordshire were not published every year but every few years from the early to mid-19th century until 1940. Kelly's Directory for Bedfordshire lists John Barker as a butcher in Flitwick from 1928 to 1940; he does not appear in the directory for 1924.