History of 109 High Street, Sandown, Isle of Wight

This is 109 High Street, Sandown.

The earliest record of the building’s inhabitants is 1882 to at least 1888 when it was occupied by The India and China Tea who sold various products including soap, marmalade, jams and teas.

By 1898, the shop had become a linen drapery run by Frederick William Compton. According to an article on isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk, the Comptons moved to Canada in 1910. Their daughter Violet (or Betty as she was later known) who had been born at the shop, later moved to New York where she appeared as a member of Ziegfeld Follies and later danced in Funny Face with Fred and Adele Astair. Frederick later moved back to the Island in the 1920s.

Around 1910 John Saunders, the next occupant at the shop, ran a gent’s and juvenile outfitters, working as a tailor, hosier, glover and selling ready-made clothing such as flannel suits, athletic shirts, pyjama suits, sleeping shirts, swimming costumes, ladies’ hose, ladies’ gloves, children’s socks, paddling drawers, Dent’s goves, Morely’s hosiery, and ‘boy’s navy serge knickers for seaside wear’ (which were priced at 1/11 ½!)

During the second world war, Percy Vialls had a boot and shoe dealers shop, and by 1957 the shop was a coach tours office for Moss Motor Tours, a bus and coach company that operated between 1921 and 1994. Today the shop is a hair salon, Salon 109.

Please read more about the history of Sandown shops with more shop illustrations on our page Sandown History.