The village stores were situated at The Cross and known to have been trading as far back as the early 19th century, possibly even earlier. William Watson’s 1811 village plan of Seaton Ross clearly indicates the location of the property with its occupier to be Charles Beilby – Grocer.
The Beilby family traded at the premises for a number of years with Charles running the business during the early 19th century before his son Robert, took over running the family grocer’s during the mid 19th century. The business changed hands in the 1870’s, with Thomas Easingwood (a local farmer of 6 acres) becoming the new occupier.
Thomas only traded for a short period of time before George Johnson took over in the late 1870’s as grocer, provision dealer and carrier. George was one of the carriers who journeyed from Seaton Ross to The White Swan, Pavement, York each Saturday and Market Weighton on a Wednesday. George’s son, George Johnson jnr. took over as carrier to York and Market Weighton in the early 1900’s. The Johnson family ran the stores for many years. After George Johnson died in the early 1900s his wife Dorothy continued to run the business until the first world war.
Dorothy carried on running the business at the stores through the First World War up until the early 1920s, by which time she was well into her eighties (Dorothy was 52 in 1891!). After 50 years plus of running the Village Stores at The Cross, the Johnsons moved on and the property was taken by the Market Weighton Co-operative Society becoming No. 2 Branch Seaton Ross. It remained a branch of the Co-operative until the latter part of the 20th century and eventually became an ironmongers shop.
The occupiers changed several times before the property became a private dwelling in the late 20th century.
The corner shop, alas, was gone and with it another part of Seaton Ross village history.
Malcolm Young