Research Salisbury Steam Laundry?

The recent storms have blown away the modern posters on a local advertising space and we are left with the original one.

I wonder when that dates from?  It is obviously quite old and the paint is peeling off, but it is quite well preserved, no doubt because it has been covered with other posters.

There is part missing on the right (or is it still just covered up?) but I wonder if there is also a bit missing on the left as there seems to be quite a large space.  I wonder if there was a picture and if so what was the picture of.  I think I might have seen a photograph of a similar advertisement in a book of old photos but I can’t remember what the picture was of  – or if there really was a picture.

Looking on the internet, pictures of the Salisbury Steam Laundry building were quite easy to find.  What  history I could find was in some planning information from a developer, which suggested that the actual laundry closed about 4 decades ago, but had been there since at least 1851 or was it 1905?  Different sources give different dates!  That gives considerable scope for the age of the advertisement!

I decided more research might be interesting, so I went and took my own picture of the building and hence discovered that the planning permission must have been refused as there is no third floor.

I then went to the local studies part of the library and looked at all the old picture books but failed to find any pictures of the original advertisement.  There are lots of other interesting pictures though, including those showing the Steam Laundry building having been badly damaged by fire in June 1922.  The wonderful tiles must have been put up since then.

Talking of fires, a bit further down the street I found this.

I had no idea that the fire station had ever been there and a woman walking past as I was taking the photo said that she had never noticed it before.  Salisbury has all sorts of odd little corners of history like this.

I then asked lots of  people who have lived in Salisbury 40 years or more if they knew about the advertisement, but although most people could tell me where the laundry building was, no one seemed to know about the advert, except one lady who thought it might have had a picture of  a mangle.  That rang a bell with me – but where can I have seen it?  I haven’t been in Salisbury that long, so either it is my imagination or I have seen a photo somewhere – but where?

My next move was to email the picture to the man who does the old photographs in the Salisbury Journal.  He emailed back to say he had seen the advertisement and had meant to go and take a photograph of it.  I saved him some time!  He said he would use it in the Journal the following week and see if he can get any responses – so there is some hope of going further.  The advertisement was covered up with a new hoarding before it appeared in the Journal!

The Journal had my photograph – and also what I said in the email.  If I had known he would copy it, I would have taken more care over its composition!  He says the laundry was “established in 1891” – another different date.  That it changed its name, taking out the word “steam” and had other shops as well “by 1962” (obviously not sure of the dates) and “we believe the business was closed in 1966”.  Then it was a matter of waiting to see if there were any replies to the request for information…….

A week later I got an email saying there had been a good response and the replies would be in the Journal for the next week.  So, another wait!

The sketch on the left came from a man who said that this was what was in the picture – a boy drying himself with a white towel – but the boy was in full colour.  He said it probably dated back to about 1946 and the picture was painted on a separate board – which explains the marks to the left in the original picture.

So where has this led me?  Well, I have found a few new interesting corners of Salisbury including the Local Studies section of the library, which I knew was there but had not investigated before.  I think (if I ever have time) I might spend a bit more time in there – there was some quite interesting stuff.  For example, the floods of 1915 were worse than the recent ones in their effect on the city and there was a picture book with 100 photos of places to identify, as a competition.  Fortunately the answers were there, so it would be possible to go and see how many are still around.  That might be some interesting research!

I have also talked to quite a few different people who have been in Salisbury for a long time – and it is always fun to talk to different people, even if they couldn’t help with my queries.

Peter Daniels from the Journal was also very helpful and even got me an answer!  People have longer and better memories than I really expected!