As the above advert (from around 1908) shows, there was once a Grocer's on Leven Road run by an Andrew Somerville. In fact, my recollection is that the name 'Somerville' was still over the door of the shop into the 1970s, even though a different family had been running the business for some time by then. I remember it as an old-fashioned grocer, with interesting smells and most goods kept behind a counter to be weighed and wrapped with care. But, what of the origins of the shop?
A visit to the special collection at St Andrew's University Library unearthed the original architect's drawings for a pair of shops with upstairs dwellings, drawn in 1899 for a Mr Somerville. This particular Somerville was John, however, not Andrew. John Somerville was a successful Leven grocer who was looking to expand his business into the developing village of Lundin Links, quite probably also with the ultimate aim of handing the reins of the new shop over to his then teenage apprentice grocer son, Andrew. The section of the Leven Road shops built for Mr Somerville is now numbers 11-17 Leven Road, including Coates IT and Premier Convenience Store. Designed originally as mirror-image ground floor shops, with first floor kitchens, parlours and sculleries and second floor bedrooms, the grocer occupied the left hand side property while Gulland draper had the right hand side one.
A visit to the special collection at St Andrew's University Library unearthed the original architect's drawings for a pair of shops with upstairs dwellings, drawn in 1899 for a Mr Somerville. This particular Somerville was John, however, not Andrew. John Somerville was a successful Leven grocer who was looking to expand his business into the developing village of Lundin Links, quite probably also with the ultimate aim of handing the reins of the new shop over to his then teenage apprentice grocer son, Andrew. The section of the Leven Road shops built for Mr Somerville is now numbers 11-17 Leven Road, including Coates IT and Premier Convenience Store. Designed originally as mirror-image ground floor shops, with first floor kitchens, parlours and sculleries and second floor bedrooms, the grocer occupied the left hand side property while Gulland draper had the right hand side one.
John Somerville (shown in photo) must have retired to Lundin Links, as it is here that he died in 1929 at the age of 75. The 20 June Courier reported his death, noting that he had been a J.P., a former Provost of Leven, a member of Scoonie Kirk Session and holder of several other public offices. He had carried out grocery business for over forty years in Leven. It seems that his son, Andrew Allan Somerville also had a long career as a grocer. He had married Elizabeth White, of Fir Park, Lundin Mill. It appears that he had the Leven Road shop until the early 1950s. In January 1953, the business was advertised for sale as a going concern (and as part of a package including the pair of shops and dwellings above). Andrew Somerville died in 1961, aged 76.
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