The January picture (below) in the Reepham Life 2024 Calendar shows a view of Norwich Road. The building on the left displays the name of George Storey who was a painter and decorator.
The late local historian Wesley Piercy tells us that George used the upper part of the building as storage for his decorating supplies and that in the 1920s the ground floor was a butcher’s shop run by W E Spriggs.
The Storey family lived in the house known as The Bays. George played the cello and was the conductor of the Reepham Orchestral Band (below, seated right) as well as being part of the Reepham Black Diamonds.
George Storey was born in 1883 and grew up in Norwich working as a bootmaker in Pitt Street where his father Edmund had a boot manufacturing business.
George must have made a decision to seek work elsewhere since in 1907 he married Lilian Agnes Wright in Hackford Parish Church (presumably St Michael’s Whitwell). Lilian was the daughter of John Wright, plumber and glazier.
In the 1881 Census, John Wright, age 26, had his own business on Norwich Road. The image below, probably from the 1920s, shows John Wright’s painted advertisement, which was visible for many years on the gable wall of The Bays/Bay House. This is the house that faces Norwich Road, attached to Swiss Cottage. Before it was painted over the text read: “John Wright Registered Sanitary Plumber/Drains Tested/Decorator”.
John Wright died in March 1911 just before the Census of that year, and George Storey was registered as a painter and decorator at the Norwich Road address, presumably having taken over his father-in-law’s business.
By 1922 George and Lilian had six children and eventually moved to Acton in Middlesex (now a suburb of West London).
The house known as The Bays was taken by the Allen family who had a coach business, running services to Norwich.
Janet Archer
The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham.