Above: The Woodbridge Road shop was called ‘St John’s Mill’ when this 1950 photograph was taken. The three storey building resembles the one seen today, but boasts a large industrial chimney behind it. There would probably have been a steam engine to power the grinding of corn and pulses for animal feed. Photograph courtesy of David Kindred’s Kindred Spirit.

At the end of July 2020, this well-known Ipswich name sold its last bag of kibbles and closed its doors after over a hundred years in Ipswich. Tom and Harry Barnard opened the first shop on the junction of today’s Grimwade Street and Fore Street (with The Sorrel Horse public house behind it) in 1908 to specialise in animal feedstuffs. 

In 1935 the premises shown above opened offering all sorts of animal feed, equine supplies, and later baker’s yeast, garden, pet and and wild bird products. Becoming a limited company in 1951, Harry Barnard’s four sons were by then working for the business. Flourishing trade encouraged the opening of a second shop in Bramford Road in 1968 which eventually closed in 1983. The Fore Street shop had closed in 1973. The company continues to trade in Bramford.

Below: the shop on the corner of Grimwade Street and  Fore Street, 1960s, with the entry to The Sorrel Horse Inn at right. Photograph from The IPswich Society Image Archive.

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