A Colmer’s connection

Who amongst our Bath and district readers remembers the department store called Colmer’s which graced Union Street for over a hundred years?

James Colmer was a Devon boy who learned the drapery trade in London, before diving into the department store business in Bath – a city which also had Jolly and Son and Evans and Owen up and running for James to compete with.

Back in 2014 – when this blog was called The Virtual Museum of Bath – l featured a specially- produced booklet, published in 1970, to celebrate the store’s centenary.

So successful was he – and his son after him – that shop after shop along Union Street came into the Colmer’s embrace.

In 1914 a new shop front covered all the property under one name. In the 1930’s a complete re-build got underway. Though pitted with shrapnel the store escaped serious war damage and emerged to prosper and grow with new branches in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.

Colmers of Bath and the New Zealand connection.

Colmers may have been consigned to history, but the building remains and now houses a collection of individual traders.

However, the Colmers story is taken up now by Chris Kippin – a once local man who now lives in Shropshire.

‘Visiting north Devon recently to take photos of churches and chapels, I came across this former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel at Ford, a few miles west of Bideford, just off the A39.

I was interested in J P Colmer, as he had lived at Redland Knoll, Bristol. I used to live in Bristol, not far from Redland, but it appears from the appended article that Redland Knoll was actually a house in Blenheim Road, Clifton (point 12).

Clifton Down Circular Walk – Bristol Rail Campaign (FoSBR)

It seems that it was occupied by H O Wills of tobacco fame in 1881, but maybe Colmer had lived there earlier but had moved on by this time.

Your article about Colmer’s department store (which I remember) mentions that Colmer was ‘a Devon boy’, so it’s possible that this is the same J P Colmer, and might help you fit a few more pieces into the jigsaw!”

Thanks Chris.