Elliott's Store in Saltash receives a facelift

Take a step back in time at Elliott's Store

Elliott's Stores is like walking into a 1970's time warp.

When the owner Frank Elliott shut up shop, he decided when he died he wanted it to be preserved as retail museum.

The crumbling building has just been saved from the ravages of time and the weather by the Tamar Protection Society.

The famous shop has been in Saltash since 1903.

Before that it was a butcher's shop.

BBC Cornwall's Julie Fisher went along to step back in time with the museum's shopkeeper - Kevin Proctor. Click on the link to hear her report.

Frank Elliott traded in the shop until 1973 but he disagreed with the idea of decimalization and decided to shut up shop.

The local council still claimed the new business rate even though the shop had ceased trading so wily Mr Elliott turned the shop into a museum to avoid having to pay the rate.

When he was in his '90s Frank Elliott requested that The Tamar Protection Society took over the running of the shop's museum.

Just one day after the agreement between the shop-keeper and the society Mr Elliott passed away, safe in the knowledge that his beloved store was in safe hands.

In Pictures: Elliott's Store

There was one condition to the society taking over Elliott's store, that it remained unchanged.

The society has kept to Frank Elliott's wishes and nearly 40 years after the shop closed its doors as a business, it remains a popular museum.

There are many brands from the past on display

Kevin Proctor from the society says: "There's a memory on every shelf. I think that anyone who comes in can say 'I remember my mother buying that'.

"My favourite memory is pineapple jam. We have lots of old jars here.

"Mr Elliott would open the food from the bottom of the tin, cleaned them out and then put the tins back on the shelf.

"In theory he ate his way through the contents of the shop."

Kevin believes the old shopkeeper would have been delighted to know his dream of a museum was being maintained.

"It's still got his name over the door. The store was definitely meant to be kept as a museum. He'd be chuffed to bits I am sure."

The simple scales, the delivery bicycle propped up against the wall, and the stacked shelves take you back to when Elliott's store was a genuine 'Open All Hours'.

Can you remember 'Red Ring' self-raising flour...or maybe Crosbie's Strawberry Jam? Did you enjoy a tipple of Imperial Bond Sweet Sherry or Whiteway's Wine?

The Tamar Protection Society has just spent around £30,000 restoring the building so the name Elliott's Store will remain an important part of Saltash for many years to come.

Turn Back Time

At the end of October a special shop opened for one weekend only in Truro.

The 1930's grocer's shop was part of a BBC Campaign called Turn Back Time - The History of the High Street.

See pictures and find out more about the campaign by clicking here