Hucknall store Peppers celebrating 100 years of being the town's favourite community shop

Peppers, on Watnall Road, has now been serving the people of Hucknall for a century and it remains as popular as ever.

Hilda Pepper’s original shop was located on the corner of Albert Street and High Street and it later moved to the corner of High Street and Baker Street.

Today, it is on Watnall Road and although it is now part of the Premier Stores group, it remains known as Peppers.

In the past, famous Hucknall names like composer Eric Coates and actor Robin Bailey were both regular customers and many people in Hucknall will tell you how they recall buying sweets from the shop on the way home from school.

The shop is currently run by Richard Johnson, who took with his wife in 2000, although the store has been in his family since the 1970s.

Mrs Johnson’s family – the Baileys – bought the shop and promised Hilda they’d keep the Peppers name going.

Richard said: “We’ve got an original photo of Peppers with two women standing outside the shop and one is holding a child, who’d be about two then.

"We know he died in 2019 aged about 75 and we’ve done the calculations based on that and that makes Peppers around 100 years old, although we’ve never been able to find anything from any further back than that picture.

"We’re still in contact with the Pepper family and Mrs Pepper’s great-grandson told us about when he worked at the shop and the likes of Eric Coates and Robin Bailey coming in regularly.

"Mrs Pepper used to drive quite a distinctive big car and one of our customers now remembers that and that it was quite a big car for a little old lady.”

The shop has had a recent expansion and facelift and continues to go from strength to strength.

Richard continued: “I think what makes Peppers so popular is that we know the area, the staff and customers all know each other and it’s just always been a popular community store.

"During Covid, for example, we always made sure we had supplies of things like bread and toilet rolls for our regulars and I think it’s that sort of thing that makes us so popular with everyone.”