11/01/2026
Andy Rose has sent me a up date to my list of change over the last 70 plus years and its scary to see what we let progress do to Broadway .
A house that now is 31 high street was my grandparents house Heber John Keyte senior a village self employed painter and decorator and his wife Susan Butler Keyte lived there in the early 1900s my mother and her brothers and sister was raised in it .
What made Broadway a village was its village residents some families going back hundreds of years .
I myself come from one such family who's mother was born to my grandparents who lived at 31 high street in the early years of the 1900 s.
As a small village everyone knew each other by name farmers, shop keepers pub landlords and the posh folk in the big houses and last of all the village bobby .
Sadly over the years the village as evolved in to a small town with maybe as many as 3,000 residents now far form the few hundred of the 1800 an 1900s when it was a village as I remember it.
Tourists and lust for money and city folk robbed the village of its heritage at a price, the shops and shop keepers of yesteryear have all gone and now replaced with cafes ,tea shops , art galleries , antique shops, with tacky pavement signage and some even bolted to listed buildings , who let this happen ?.
This may be fine for tourists and entrepreneur’s but along with the progress and traffic lights and CCTV cameras the village is no longer the one I remember.
Don’t misunderstand me progress is important along with change to our lives , but don’t destroy the past in doing it , History belongs to us all. Governments , Borough Councils , and the Rich have no right to take and destroy it.
So what has the village lost in my life time of 76 years .
My memory of yesteryear . Starting at Orchard avenue . Fish & Chip shop / Grocery shop . and a Cobblers
Leamington road a Haberdashery shop, Sweet shop, Bakers ,CoOP Butchers a Monastery and Vicarage Police station.
Fish Hill Garage Pub,Council rubbish dump .
North Street Police station ,Pub , school 2 Grocery shops ,Off licence,Doctors .
High street going down , CoOp Grocery store , Raido and electric , Ladys and gents outfitters shoe’s, Mr Joans Grocery store. Barbers Doctors , Luckets and Jeque’s shops 2 furniture an workshops , Warrens hardware store and Service garage , Lygon public bar and yard garage ,. HH Colin's Butchers with slaughterhouse , Grocery store , Chemist . Gordon Russel's offices , Electric repair shop , Bakers sweet and cakes and news papers shop . a Garage petrol , TV and radio shop , Grocery and veg store , Public toilets , litlle haberdashery sewing shop. a service and petrol garage down on the Cheltenham road , football club and council rubbish dump , Bakers.
High street going up from the green gas office and shop ,gents outfitters , caff, ladys lingerie shop, petrol garage , vets , post office , butchers bank , snooker hall , toy and jewelers watch repair, sweet shop , News agents and gifts, bank. little veg shop .RSPCA office an teas.
Andy Rose’s updated list of what the village has lost to progress
Stewart's / Birchway Builders Yard, Broadway Coaches, Gordon Russell's Factory Buildings including the Social Club, Smithy & Legally Protected Draughmans Building, Bookies, Scholl Shop just up from the Tea Room's of which there were 2 of, Lloyds Bank come RBL, Social Club School Canteen, Playground with Swings etc in, 20+ Garages before you got to the Canteen Gate, Wooden Youth Club which would Never have been Built original Site, curtesy of Jack Hanglen who did a great deal for the whole Village but was never awarded anything unlike some others, Garages behind the Primary School, Mr. & Mrs. David Ingles Farm that supplied Milk, Eggs, Bread and Pop to the whole of the Village, Tom's Farm that still stands Empty as it has done everything since the Bypass 2nd Route was chosen as the then Toffs didn't want it behind there properties, Shear House built for the Elderly with a Car Park for over 100 vehicles with a Toilet Block and a Council building behind, gone as yet again it was more lucrative to build homes on the Top End of the Car Park. Dunhelms in the High Street, part of the Builders Merchants in Leamington Rd, everything that was once good about the Village has been ripped out and for what reason, 2 Banks both Buildings have stood Empty for years and now they are on about updating the Lygon Arms, which is an historical Hotel, only because Oliver Cromwell stayed in One of the Room's for 1 night after the Battle of Evesham, it's like a tinder box waiting to go up. Florist further down, St.Patricks tea Room's & then made into a Shop that sold all sorts for the visitors, NHS Dentist gone but it's now Private Patients Only, Opticians, Cotswold Café, John Cole, who delivered the Coal and Spuds to locals just before Christmas, Toch H, and the Slaughter house, everything that made Broadway for the many Families who lived, worked, volunteered and died there wouldn't recognise the Village as it now stands, just a place for Tourism & for some about making a fast buck. No one has ever been told what happened to all that Money that was Donated for the Swimming Pool, which never got built. Probably went on the Lifford Hall & it's 1st revamp, then 15yrs later they needed money for a major build on it, selling off Roof Tiles to anyone that they could, even one person had a room named after him for all the hard work and time he put in, but those who came beforehand were never mentioned. Also the Telephone Exchange has gone and all those Allotments gone forever. As for the latest venture building on the old quarry down Station Road that had loads of stuff dumped in it from various camps etc, right next to a Heritage Site, they are going to need a great deal of Concrete just to keep these buildings up for how long remains to be seen, then finally the Roman Press that used to print local magazines etc, closed and just stood there. Yocker if I think of anything else that I've missed I'm sure that you will still have a few that haven't been mentioned, great shame that this is progress or so they say. Personally what goes around comes back around and bites back just like when Covid reheared it's ugly head and will keep mutating just like the Flu and common cold. Andy Rose an Yocker Yarnold
