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Butcher Shop at 533 Blockhouse Bay Road

Butcher Shop at 533 Blockhouse Bay Road Changes coming in our village mainstreet. The building at 533 Bockhouse Bay Road is due for demolition, because the old original building was moving on its foundations, and it will be replaced with a new shop, and apartments. In about 1930, No. 533 was a purpose built butchers shop. It had sawdust on the floor, a huge wooden butcher chopping block, a rail on which carcasses were hung, as well as a cool room at the rear.

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Four Square Store

Blockhouse Bay Grocery and General Store opened c.1917 Talk by Frances Winchcombe Booker, 1 December 2004 Introduction: From 1917 to 1922 the Store was owned by Percy Fowler, followed by L. & W. Wood; then in 1924 Mr Simons, followed by Mr Walters; 1927 to 1938 it was owned by the McMurray family; and 1943 to 1952 by W. G. Winchcombe & Co. In 1938 McMurray built and moved into a brand new brick building on the corner of Blockhouse Bay Road and Kinross Street, which consisted of a huge storage basement, a very large shop with living accommodation at the rear, and five bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.

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The First Shop

The first shop The very first shop in the district opened, not in the “Mainstreet”, but at the foot of Endeavour Street in 1912. In those days the street was completely undeveloped and was just a track winding down through the scrub to the beach. The creek at the bottom, where the pumping station used to stand, was then crossed by a log in place of a bridge. The log was later replaced with a black plank bridge.

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