Yesteryear: memories of much-loved Luton pet shop Dockrill’s

The 1921 census shows Arthur William Dockrill was working as a shopkeeper selling ‘sweets and tobacco’ out of the premises shown here at 84 Dunstable Road.

By the 1930s, the shop is listed as a ‘corn merchant’ which perhaps explains its transition into providing pet supplies.

After the war it is advertised as selling livestock, pot plants and garden sundries.

By the time this photograph was taken, in the 1950s, Arthur’s grandson, Jim Oliver Dockrill was at the helm of the operation which occupied what was then 82 and 84 Dunstable Road.

By this time, it had become quite a local attraction. An advert placed in the Luton News in 1962 reads, “budgies, canaries, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rats, tortoises, turtles, gold and fancy fish, parrots, macaws, cockatoos, mynas, etc. etc. See them all at Dockrill’s”.

Separate ads from around this time advise Lutonians to “display your pedigree puppies at Dockrill’s and sell them quickly” and “If your budgie doesn’t talk give it Dockrill’s Seed. If he does talk, he’ll ask for it”.

The much-loved shop eventually closed in the late 1970s.

Today, the buildings that housed Dockrill’s are still in use as furniture shops - but are almost totally unrecognisable after more recent modernisations.

> Which former Luton or Dunstable shop do you miss the most? Email memories to editorial@lutonnews.co.uk for inclusion in the Luton News/Dunstable Gazette which features regular Yesteryear articles such as this.