Are they dead?

[Phoenix]

I am researching a parade of shops - Cranleigh Parade, Nell! - and popped into the local estate agents, in search of more information.

They told me that the old lady who ran the local hairdressers lived above the shop and was working into her nineties. When she died, her nephew sold the shop and the flat upstairs.

Hmm.

One electoral roll from the early 2000s shows the "nephew" also living in the flat, and gives me the hairdresser's name. Same surname as his, and she is born in 1928.

His father had one brother and his aunt by marriage died in Sussex.

His father remarried in the 1980s. His mother had the same christian name as the woman he was living with.

Tracing her back, she is the only child of her parents, and is redacted on the 1939 register.

It's perfectly reasonable that I should have been told a few porky pies. GDPR and all that.

I have found the property sale, in 2021. I've also found a will, for a death in 2024.

As I cannot find a death around the time of the sale, but the name is uncommon, do you reckon I go for the will? Any other things to go for? I can't find anything regarding her death online.

[kiterunner]

The GRO site hasn't got 2024 deaths yet - it only goes up to 2023. So yes, I would go for the will.

[Phoenix]

Yes, I can't imagine the deaths will appear any time before 2026.

I've been able to do an amazing amount on the computer - and the shop has been a hairdressers right from the start, when the parade was built in the 1930s - but I can't help feeling it would be quicker in person!

[Olde Crone]

This puzzle resonates with me. I had something similar. Briefly, if people didn't remove their names they stayed on the electoral roll for ever. My daughter left home at 18 to go into the army and never lived with me again - but her permanent address was my home and she had a postal vote from there. Long after she had married and had a home of her own, we still received her postal vote papers even though I informed the electoral roll compiler! So, in short, just because someone's on the electoral roll doesn't mean they live there.

I also found (but further back) that if you owned/rented business premises, you were entitled to vote at borough elections as a ratepayer. So if you lived above your business premises you had two votes in theory!

OC

But get the will anyway!
.

[Phoenix]

Researching the shops has been complicated by the numbering system. When they were built the parade had its own numbers and the existing houses had names like Yew Tree Cottage. The electoral rolls show who was living there and who had lock up shops but lived elsewhere.
By 1939 however the postmen must have been getting stressed by all the new buildings going up and the road was renumbered. And then because it was a faff deciding whether the post was domestic or commercial a road was built at the back with the same numbering.
The hairdresser's mother lived at the same address.
She appears on very few electoral rolls.

[Phoenix]

Hooray!

I don't know if the probate website has been updated as they didn't like the email I've been using for years, and I cannot currently download the grant, but the details have arrived.

Yes, the Jean Chick, testator, was the lady I was looking for. In 2019 she was still at 43 Cranleigh Close.

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

I am researching a parade of shops - Cranleigh Parade, Nell! - and popped into the local estate agents, in search of more information.

We never called it Cranleigh Parade, we called it Sanderstead Parade to differentiate it from Hamsey Green Parade. I remember there was an Italian restaurant. Also Dick Townley Sports where I ordered my Tammy doll.

[Phoenix]

It was built as Cranleigh Parade, Nell. There were five blocks of six shops, and the builders started with the block nearest what is now Waitrose, and built up towards the Gruffy......

They got into terrible confusion with their numbering, and as some were lock up shops, and others were the numbers for flats, entered from the rear, the postmen must have been in despair.

By 1939, they were renumbered as Limpsfield Road, starting at number one and using odd numbers, but some stuck to the old name.

Finally, Cranleigh Close became more than a dirt track, and the flats had the same numbers as the shops in Limpsfield Road, but the post should go through the correct letterbox.

It's been a nightmare, trying to work out which shops were where, given all the changes in numbering. Had the builders got it right, they might still be called Cranleigh Parade!

I was a bit old for Dick Townley Sports, but I do remember steak piziaola at Elio's.

Do you remember Monty's? It was a corner shop and I think served teas, as well as selling pastries. It became Wilsons about 1970, and I think then became a bakers. It's now a barbers!