When Enid Alexandra Hampshire bought No. 17 Carr Lane in March 1954, she gave the shop a new name that would outlive her by decades: Bottomley’s. Seventy years later the name still hangs proudly over the doorway — a quiet tribute to the woman who shaped the shop’s identity and whose family roots ran deep in Marsden and the Colne Valley.
This is her story.
A Marsden Childhood: The Bottomley Family
Enid Alexandra Bottomley was born on 1 December 1908 in Marsden and baptised one month later, on 2 January 1909. She came from a long-established local family: her parents, James Bottomley and Mary Alice Holroyd, had married in 1899.
The Bottomley name was well known in the area, having been established there since the early 19th century. Her father James Bottomley was a successful master painter and plasterer who was born and bred in Marsden and never left, and neither did Enid or the son she would have. All of them, never moving out of a one-mile radius. Enid was born at No. 1, Peel Street, moving to Carrs Road with her parents and then, after she was married, to Corrie Lynn: a beautiful spot, near her father, with far reaching views of the valley. She stayed here for the rest of her life, later traveling daily to Slaithwaite for work.
Marriage to Edmund Hampshire
On 16 September 1933, Enid married Edmund Hampshire at St Bartholomew’s Church, Marsden — the same church that had baptised her as a baby. The marriage record shows Enid as a 24-year-old spinster living in Marsden and Edmund as a 30-year-old clerk from Meltham.
A wonderful detail survives about Edmund: in 1927, aged 25, he won the Barnsley Music Contest singing tenor — a glimpse of a musical talent now folded into the shop’s quieter history. We also know that he was a Special Constable during the second world war.
Enid and Edmund’s son, James R. Hampshire, was born in 1934.
Buying No. 17 Carr Lane (1954)
On 26 March 1954, Enid purchased No. 17 Carr Lane from the developer John Jagger for £1,925. The deeds were registered later that year, in October, at a cost of £2 and 10 shillings.
Although earlier businesses had operated from the premises — including Mr Sharples’ draper’s and later the ration shop — Enid was the first person to buy the property after the parade’s construction. Throughout the mortgage deed she is referred to as:
“Enid Alexandra Hampshire of Corrie Lynn, Marsden, wife of Edmund Hampshire”
She alone signs the mortgage as the Mortgagor, meaning Enid and not her husband, Edmund, had financial and legal responsibility for the property and although married, she was the owner in her own right.
The Carr Lane parade has certainly had its fair share of female owners; from the spinsters, Miss Townend and Miss Hobson of the 1920s to Mrs Alice Kaye and her sister-in-law Adeline Shaw in the 1930s. After Enid Hampshire’s success story in the 1950s, more women would own their own shops on the parade: Valerie Pickering, Christine Thornton and Alison Coates.
But in 1954, rations were finally over and Enid could spread delight by stocking and selling rows upon rows of sweets!
Her father had died the year before, leaving a considerable sum of money for Enid and his wife, Mary Alice. It was already clear how much Enid had adored her father when she named her only child after him. Hardly surprising then, that now she was in a position to buy her own shop, thanks to him, it would be renamed Bottomley’s.
Running the Shop with Her Son
Enid didn’t run Bottomley’s alone. Local memory recalls her son working with her for decades before he announced the shop was ‘under new management’ in 1996, just two years before his mother’s death at the age of 89. Customers remember his distinctive voice and way of stretching the word “yes,” and the visible disability affecting one arm (perhaps due to childhood polio). People also recall watching in wonder and bemusement as he rode his bicycle through the village with just one arm, or how he skillfully managed the sweet jars even from the top shelf, unscrewing the lids and tipping the multi-coloured delights onto the scales and into paper bags.
Despite the family surname being Hampshire, he was widely known as “Mr Bottomley”, because the shop name became his identity in the village. And despite his name being James (after his maternal grandfather) he was known as Raymond.
Later Life
Although Edmund Hampshire died in 1985; Enid lived on until October 1998, reaching the grand old age of 89. The Bottomley’s were blessed with long lives: James, Mary Alice, Enid and James Raymond all living into their 80s. And, despite changes in ownership, the Bottomley name at No.17, at 71 years, is almost as long lived. Long may it be so.
