44 High Street Flitwick

44 High Street September 2017

Today [2017] 44 High Street is a hairdresser’s called Pinos. 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 the property [DV1/C130/11] found that it was owned by C Bennett and occupied by grocers William Arthur Riddle and Sons. Their rent was £50 per annum, the valuer noting “really repayment, not rent” and “purchase price £1,200 1925” so presumably the grocer had bought the property from Bennett and was paying him in instalments as a mortgage, or Bennett was simply the mortgagee, not the original owner. William Arthur Riddle is listed as grocer in Flitwick in Kelly’s Directory for 1924 and until the last directory in 1940.

Accommdation comprised two reception sooms, a kitchen and scullery combined and a store room, and had four bedrooms upstairs (“?two more used as store”) and one further bedroom “in the roof”. There was also a basement cellar (“very damp”). The shop measured 28 feet 6 inches by 15 feet with a 3 feet wide and 28 feet 6 inches long area for staff.

Outside was a brick and slate loose box, trap house and corn store and two wood and corrugated iron store sheds. The valuer commented: “Too big for Flitwick now. People shop at Luton or Bedford”.