Now Mount's Bay Wine.
Bodilly Borough Stores, Bread Street.
Messrs Bodilly and Co were Millers at Laregan Mills, which was sited where Lidls and Co-op are now.
They began business around 1740 and had a new granite building built in 1874,
fitted with modern millstones, it was bought in 1893 by Charles Trevithick of Hayle, for the new company of Bodilly.
and then powered by steam engines by Harveys of Hayle,
and a great chimney stood over the five-storey Laregan Mills;
It was at this time that the new offices, store and grocery outlet was built in Bread Street.
They imported saffron, dried fruit; they were manufacturers of the brand Snowdrop self-raising flour,
and packers of oatmeal, together with supplying condensed milk, and fine teas and biscuits.
The original Stores of Thomas Hacker Bodilly were built in Bread Street in 1837;
his Grocery and milling business had been transferred down through the family since before 1740, from John Bodilly;
they were Grocers, Corn suppliers, Millers (they had a massive mill built at Wherrytown in 1874,
based on the earlier mill of around 1845; the stores were built in Bread street, named The Borough Stores, in 1874,
and the premises were massive and extensively used.
The Bodillys lived in Alverton Cottage from around 1855 and certainly until after 1901.
With major changes in marketing and supplies, mills in Cornwall depleted; Thomas Hacker Bodilly junior died 23rd August 1896;
Ralph Hacker Bodilly continued in his father's business - they lived at West Lodge, and he died in 1909;
By 1910 J H Tonking had acquired The Borough Stores for trade as Grain and other supplies;
James Herbert Tonking was from Phillack and he lived at 64 Chapel Street Penzance;
by 1939 Penzance had a thriving Margarine Factory in Bread Street.
It appears to have been destroyed by German incendiaries during WWII. But the Borough Stores still stand,
occupied by Mount's Bay Wine.
Part (in Belgravia Street and at the rear of High Street) of the older section of property originally built for the Bodillys continues in use,
and is just being converted.
Raymond Forward
