Ludlow shop celebrates 100 years in business
A Ludlow clothes shop has celebrated 100 years of serving customers in the town.
Back in 1917, 24-year-old Jane Goodall was working as an apprentice milliner for Charles Gough in a shop in Broad Street, , and she decided to purchase the business she had been working for when her fiancé Ernest Poyner came back from the war.
The pair married and bought the shop on April 22, 1918, and Poyners Drapers has been in business ever since.
The shop is still owned by the same family in the shape of Ernest and Jane Poyner's grandson Michael Poyner.
Sisters Margaret Edwards and Jean Parker have worked in the shop for about 30 years.
Miss Edwards said that Jane Poyner was a charitable lady and so the business follows the same values to this day.
Each year Poyners Drapers donates about 1,000 shoe boxes to the Shoebox Appeal, and it started a campaign to mark the lives lost during the First World War on the town's memorial, which raised £9,000.
"Jane Poyner was quite well known in the town, she was mayoress as her father was mayor, and she was a Justice of the Peace," added Miss Edwards.
"She used to do a lot for charity, so we do the same.
"They had one son called Reginald and he carried on the business after his parents had passed away. It's now been passed on to his son, Michael.
"The Poyner family have also got two roads named after them in Ludlow."
Miss Edwards said the shop has expanded on what it sells in the last century, but one item remains.
She said: "We've still got a hat that she made in the 1920s in the shop today.
"We do a lot of different things now, a big children's department, and we still do lots of ladies clothes.
"But it's still very much a community shop, I think people find it a friendly shop.
"We have some people whose parents and grandparents shopped here, so they shop here.
"We also get a lot of tourists and support from visitors as it's different from the high street - it's traditionally run and people love the history.
"We try to give a lot back to the community and carry on doing what Mrs Poyner started all those years ago."
