Prochain point : lat="49.1368" lon="2.14382"
Shops of Yesteryear
Boosting village trade
A wide range of trades and businesses...
Before the use of cars became widespread, rural communities were dotted with numerous shops and local craftsmen. Building materials were mined or manufactured nearby (in quarries and tile works as well as in brick and lime kilns). Many trades were closely bound up with agricultural activities (such as the wheelwright, saddler, blacksmith and farrier), and agricultural produce was processed in the vicinity (in mills, distilleries, sugar factories and farm cooperatives). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Labbeville boasted a range of shops and stores, including four cafes in the village centre, two grocers and a petrol station. There was also a blacksmith and farrier (who looked after the horses and mended farm tools) and a wheelwright (who built carts and repaired wheels) together with a saddler and boot-cum-shoemaker. There were barely any food shops, except for a butcher on Chemin d’Hérouville. These businesses gradually closed from 1960 onwards, with itinerant merchants carrying out their rounds: two bakers, two butchers and a fishmonger...
... based around four cafés
Above and beyond their economic function, cafes are also places where people meet and chat. In days gone by, they were businesses that offered a multitude of services. For instance, the Trubert café at the entrance to the village (and likewise Café Dorlot-Cantrell in the village centre) also operated as a grocery store, restaurant and wine merchant. Industrial and technological advances, reflected in the arrival of the motorcar, television sets and supermarkets, created new models of consumption. Cafes slowly began to lose their role as a leisure and social facility. Indeed, over 90% of France’s cafes disappeared in a century, mostly converted into homes, and none remains in Labbeville.
