Heaven Scent move continues family link with Briggate shop

A Briggate shop which has been a hairdresser's for nearly 50 years has been given a change of direction by the late owner's daughter. Mrs Sally Spencer, pictured above, couldn't bear the thought of the premises being sold after her mother, well-known hairdresser Beryl Southwell, who started the salon in 1977, died last November, one month short of her 90th birthday.

Sally negotiated with her sister, Wendy Southwell, to buy the shop and the adjoining house where their parents lived. Sally has converted the salon into a shop, calling it Heaven Scent and selling home fragrances, including melts, which she makes herself, gifts, shoulder bags and cards. After Beryl retired in the 1990s, the salon was run by daughter Wendy and subsequently by Wendy's son Lawrence Hindle, who now has a chair at Themis, the swish salon at No. 19 Briggate.

The iconic premises have been used for an array of retail purposes since the late 1800s.

Butcher John Lund, pictured above in the doorway, was there from the 1890s and possibly before then. Dick Ashton opened his electrical and radio shop here around the 1920s and was followed by Leonard Dyer's electrical shop in the late 1950s/early1960s.

The shop briefly was a snack bar as can be seen in this nostalgic photo taken in the late 1960s.