("Flower Bowl Tea Shop" in the Appreciation)
(Grade II listed in 1956 along with 3 Market Street as a single property)
(Grade II listed in 1956 along with 3 Market Street as a single property)
In late Victorian times, according to the trade directories for 1875, 1889 and 1903, this was one of the provisions shops owned by the Ford family, and it specialised in meat production, according to a postcard in Dave Stevens' collection. The family also owned the shop in the square that later became the village Post Office, before the base for village mail moved down to this building. The photograph below is from a late Victorian glass plate taken by an Abbotsbury photographer: the whole collection has now been digitised by the Dorset History Centre.
At the time of the Appreciation, however, it had been well established for over a decade as a popular tea room, and was described then as "a pretty little shop front". By the 1990s, it was running as two small shops, here and in no.3, both building fronts integrated into one, serving teas and selling natural selections, furnishing and general goods.
