Old pictures of Weymouth department store Hawkes and Freeman

The huge shop, in St Thomas Street, consisted of different departments selling records, luggage, hardware, DIY and electrical DIY.

It even had a garden mechanical workshop looking after lawnmower repairs. Around 30 people were employed there.

The homeware department (Image: Supplied)

It has a rich history in Weymouth – it was started in Hope Square in 1845 by Thomas Hawkes, moving in the 1860s as the Dorset Furnishing Company to 39 St Thomas Street.

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The popular store could meet the needs of any customer with the variety of its wares in the days before big multiple and chain stores.

The luggage department (Image: Supplied) These pictures were shared by Paul Foot, of Weymouth, whose father Jim was the general manager at Hawkes Freeman and went on to become the managing director.

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He said: “I remember he was a workaholic and would also want to work weekends in the store.

“I worked there as a Saturday boy and used to go out on the vans delivering items.

One of the shop's display windows (Image: Supplied) “We’d deliver all sorts - the shop sold everything under the sun.

“There were so many ledges and so much paperwork there – I remember hundreds and hundreds of ledgers!”

Christmas would be a significant time at the shop - a lavish window display would be created and people would pay a visit just to peer into the window.

Elizabeth Voysey of Preston, Weymouth, told the Echo about her  memories of working in the shop.

She was employed in the St Mary Street store in 1948 as a trainee cashier.

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Elizabeth, speaking to the Echo in 2014, said: “It was ‘the store’ then consisting of many departments.

“We had furniture, haberdashery, tools and even funeral directors!

“I remember as a young starter having to list wreaths sent to funerals and also preparing the various requirements for embalming! I can still smell the fluid.

“They made coffins on the top floor.”

(Image: Supplied)

Elizabeth then progressed to cashier under the eye of Mr Power and the other cashier later married Bernard Hawkes, the son of the Hawkes.

She said: “The whole store was run by a retired army colonel who was Colonel Bradley – an amazing man.

“I remember receiving some dead mice sent by some ‘oik’ in the furniture department who thought it was a huge joke – what days!”

Hawkes Freeman closed in 1969 – "It’s tragic how it all came to an end,” Mr Foot said.

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A company in Devon wanted to buy Weymouth builders merchant Webb Majors, Mr Foot said, and when the sale went through, Hawkes Freeman came with it.

“The problem was they were a builders merchant and had no idea about retail,” he added.

The electrical department (Image: Supplied) Webb Majors, next door to Hawkes Freeman, became part of the department store offering a hardware department.

In the final days of the department store it was valued by a London company but didn’t sell and stayed empty for some time.

Hawkes Freeman Chairman Burt Millman, left, shaking hands with an unknown man (Image: Supplied)

Mr Foot said: “We as a family were going to try and buy it all. But my mum was a worrier and she got up in the middle of the night saying ‘we can’t borrow any more money.’

“She got in such a state about it that my dad decided not to try and buy it.”

The Foot family instead opened up the Home and Garden Centre in the town centre, which is where Rieker shoes is now. It opened in 1970 and continued until 2006.