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.
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. 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.
4 Comments
Vintage Lundin Links
10/9/2014 07:21:33 pm
Many thanks to a reader for the following further information....Mrs Watson was the last to run this shop as a grocery store. When she sold up in 1982, the old sign with its ornate gilt lettering, exactly as it was in 1899, was painted over and the shop converted into the premises into a chemical engineering design office. The interior remained the same, however, lined in beautiful close grained Canadian pitch pine, the shelves filled with files instead of groceries. Another change of hands in 1992 saw the interior removed.
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Vintage Lundin Links
10/9/2014 07:23:11 pm
John Somerville's Leven shop was at the Shorehead in what is now the Indian takeaway next to the opticians. By the 1930s it had become a branch of Lipton's.
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She Bociek
10/9/2018 07:43:15 am
John Sommerville was my Great Grandfather. If anybody has any information on the Leven shop, I would be very interested. Also information on his time as Provost in Leven. Thank you very much!
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Caroline Addison
10/9/2018 03:12:13 pm
I’d love to see a photo of the shop if one exists?
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