This morning customers are busy queuing up at 12, High Street to collect their prescriptions and buy their medicines – just like generations of Ruddingtonians before them over the past 114 years. At lunchtime today, however, that’s all set to change!
At one o’clock on this 11th day of May 2019, Evans Pharmacy staff will close and lock up the historic shop for the final time – and relocate over the weekend into their new, state-of-the-art building at 11, Charles Street. Since being approved almost two years’ ago, these larger premises have been purpose-built to plans drawn up by Nottingham’s Allan Joyce Architects and are said to be more suited for a dispensary in the 21st century. The two storey building has been constructed in the former garden of Dairy Cottage behind Ruddington Library – with one downstairs room of the old cottage incorporated as a consulting room for the new pharmacy. As well as having more space, better facilities and increased security, the new location means it will also be closer to both our Ruddington medical centres for those needing to pick up a prescription or other medication.
NEXT WEEK on RUDDINGTON.info we’ll have more information and photographs of the new building – opening Monday May 13th – including details of all the services Evans Pharmacy can now offer its customers from the Charles Street premises.
Meantime, what’s next for our old High Street chemists’ shop? It’s been a dispensary since 1905 and was run by three generations of the Phethean family until 1993 before being sold to a larger company – originally under the Manor Pharmacy brand. At least the original back room from its earlier history at 12, High Street has been preserved and reconstructed within our Village Museum for future generations to see. Unfortunately a new tenant with a fresh use for the old shop has yet to be found. Just as The Bottle Top has opened to fill the gap at 2, High Street which was left by Thomas’s Greengrocers, Ruddington village centre will now have another empty shop at number 12, in addition to the vacant units at numbers 7-9 and 18 left by the closure of Barclay and Cook and the relocation of Grange Bakery respectively.
That said, Ruddington’s High Street is in a very much healthier state than many around the country. With our new Village Market, other initiatives like the Loyalty Card Scheme from The Ruddington Village Centre Partnership and Nottingham City Transport working with RUDDINGTON.info to encourage visitors to have a #RuddyGoodDayOut in our village, fingers crossed they can be occupied again very soon.
