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The Dental Surgery
The Essex County Council Newland Street Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan describes the building as ‘No. 141, is a neat brick and tile house built in 1913 with a simple classical doorcase’. A nice example of building constructed in the first part of the 20th century, still largely intact, and important to this narrow part of Newland Street.
The first occupier was Richard Sorrell and his wife, after retiring from his butchers shop next door. Mrs Sorrell still lived here until after the second world war. From 1959 until 1965 John Taylor ran a Photographers business here, after which it became a Dental Surgery. Witham Council Planning minutes show a Change of Use in 1963 agreed to a betting shop by F J Shelley but this does not appear to have been acted on.
Janet Gyford (A History of Witham) describes the buildings as: ‘141 built 1913 replacing Carpenters Arms, previously The Fleece a lodging house - visitors in mid 1800s included soldiers (one was a Polish Officer) two ordnance surveyors, travellers (some Irish) a grinder an American 'printer compositor', drovers, hawkers (one of them Canadian) and a Suffolk hydrophonist’.
The illustration below is a postcard view of the Carpenter's Arms, previously occupying the site.
Sources: Janet Gyford; Essex County Council; Cyril Taylor; Witham & Countryside Society
