J. Pettit, butcher, in Waltham c1905.

An original, old photo belonging to a former resident of Waltham.

John Pettit and Sons, butchers, on Bethlehem Street in Grimsby sadly shut up shop in October 2017 having just celebrated their 125th anniversary.

An old Kelly’s Directory shows a John Pettit, butcher, at 33 & 35 Bethlehem Street Grimsby and a Charles Pettit, butcher, at 197 Cleethorpe Road, Grimsby. Surely the two were related?

The property here was identified as 12 ‘Rose Cottage’, Barnoldby Road, Waltham by Penny Briggs. Every brick matches! The house is almost opposite The Cabin (Newsagents).

We are indebted to Alan Fletcher for his memories of this property:

“A gentleman by the name of Grantham lived in that house when I was a boy. He was involved with insurance. Alongside the property, on the right hand side, was a tree-lined track leading to a smallholding, a wooden, single-storey dwelling owned by a Mr Smith. The land included that which is now the playing field/football pitch that joins that accessed from Mount Pleasant off Fairway or Barnoldby Rd. Mr Smith was the school caretaker at the Leas School in Manor Drive. He was ex-naval, a lovely man. I was a friend of his son David “Smutty” Smith – not what you think, it was due to the fact he was covered in freckles. We had hours of fun on an old, twin-seated David Brown tractor which was petrol to start then switching to TVO once it had warmed up. One winter, it was stuck to the axles in the field and left there until spring as nobody was willing to risk getting there own tractor stuck! We used to shoot rats in the pig sties at night with a 4/10, one holding the torch whilst the other shot. Mr Smith grew a lot of Webbs Wonderfull Lettuce for the Hotel/catering trade in Grimsby & Cleethorpes. They were the size of cabbages. Much bigger than the tasteless Iceberg variety of today. The council owned “The Limes” group dwelling stands on the site of the smallholding today but the memories remain.”