Lane's

The grocer’s shop that was to be known in the mid-1860s as Lane’s was established almost 30 years earlier by Thomas Lane’s stepfather, William Yates. On his death in 1848, his widow, Ann (Thomas’ mother) continued to run the business as a grocer and flour dealer, ably assisted by Thomas.  

By 1861, Thomas had taken over and was trading as a ‘grocer and baker’; ten years later, the 1871 census describes him as both ‘grocer and landowner’, with his son eldest son, John employed as his assistant. Thomas, his younger son, joined the family business several years later, and by the 1890s he was working as both grocer and farmer, possibly farming land owned by his father. On Thomas senior’s death in 1896, Thomas junior took over the business, which by now was also an off-licence; he, in turn, was followed by his son, Stanley Marshall Lane at some time in the 1920s.

Lane’s grocery shop was situated at far end of Sunderland Street, on the left just before what is now (2009) the A1(M) bridge.