Shops and businesses

Middleton on Sea still has a butcher, a fish and chip shop, a hardware shop, a pharmacy, a newsagent with a post office in it, a wine shop and a shop open until ten at night, all within a few minutes of the estate. A good many villages this size have none of that left.

They stay open because people use them. That is the whole of the argument.

Peters Newsagents and the Post Office

134 Middleton Road, PO22 6DB · 01243 582107

They still deliver newspapers. The sign by the road says so before it says anything else, and it deserves saying here too: a paper on the mat in the morning is not something many villages still have. Ring or call in to arrange a round.

It survives for the same reason everything else on this page does. Delivery rounds need enough houses on them to be worth a paper boy’s morning.

The post office counter is inside, which saves a trip into Bognor for anything from a passport check to a parcel.

They also sell gifts. When Gifts with Love closed, Peters bought its stock and has kept restocking since, so this is now the place on Bankside to find one.

Post office counter hours, which are not the same as the shop’s:


Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday	9am to 5pm
Wednesday	8am to 1pm
Saturday	8am to 1pm
Sunday	Closed

The Wednesday and Saturday half-days are the ones people get caught by. If you are posting something that must go today, go in the morning.

Post Office branch finder Check before a special journey, in case these have changed

Peters Newsagents, a black and white mock-Tudor building on a corner with a post office sign on the smaller wing beside it, and a tall sign by the road reading Peters Newsagents Delivery Service — Peters, with the post office in the wing on the left.

Wendy, Michael and Peter

Here is a story we cannot prove, told by a long-standing resident, and too good to leave out.

The shops along here are said to have been named after the children in Peter Pan. There was a Wendy’s fruit and vegetable shop. There was a Michaels, a delicatessen. And there is still a Peters.

Whether that was Captain Coldicott’s idea, or somebody else’s, or whether it is three names that happen to fit, nobody has been able to tell us. Coldicott was building a seaside village in the 1920s, when Peter Pan was a fixture of every Christmas, so it is at least the right period for the joke.

Where Michaels actually stood is now settled, by the best evidence we have had offered: a resident who moved here in 1957 remembers it clearly, at the western end of Bankside, in what is now the accountancy office next to the log burning stove shop, opposite end from Sourdough Sisters. Her niece worked there part-time in the mid-1980s, so the shop was still trading there decades after it opened. The idea that it stood in the Sourdough Sisters unit appears to be the myth.

Ye Olde Tudor Butchery

165 Middleton Road, PO22 6DF · 01243 583200

A family butcher, and the selection of local produce is genuinely surprising for a shop this size. There is also a range of South African inspired delicacies, which is not something the rest of the village prepares you for.

Worth going in for a look even if you only came out for sausages.

Tuesday to Friday, 8.30am to 5.30pm. Saturday, 8.30am to 3.00pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Ye Olde Fish & Chipps Shoppe

165 Middleton Road · 01243 582195

Next door to the butcher, under the same roof.

Lunch, 11.30am to 2.00pm. Evening, 5.00pm to 8.30pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.

A white and black mock-Tudor parade with leaded windows above and two shopfronts below, one signed Ye Olde Tudor Butchery, Purveyor of Fine Meat, the other Ye Olde Fish and Chipps Shoppe — The butchery and the chip shop, 165 Middleton Road.

Barleys

161 Middleton Road, PO22 6DE · 01243 586213 · shop@barleys.biz

Hardware, DIY, paint mixing, keys cut, garden supplies, pet and wild bird food, and Calor gas. The shop that saves you a trip to a retail park for one washer.

Monday to Friday, 8.45am to 5.00pm. Saturday, 8.45am to 4.30pm. Closed Sunday.

barleys.biz What they stock, and Calor gas

Barleys, a white weatherboarded shop with a long fascia reading keys cut, DIY, home and garden, Calor, pet food, and a window display of pet supplies — Barleys, 161 Middleton Road.

Grandé Wines

Middleton Road, in the same parade as the butchery.

A wine shop and off-licence. They do not publish opening hours anywhere, and we have not found a phone number either, so the only way to find out is to walk past. It is next door to the butchery, so you will be passing anyway.

Grandé Wines, a shopfront with a black fascia and pink lettering in a white mock-Tudor building — Grandé Wines.

The Glorious Spa Company

155 Middleton Road, PO22 6DF · 01243 584331

Treatments and therapies, in the black and white cottage set back from the road. One of five branches, and this is the Middleton one.

Tuesday to Thursday, 10am to 8pm. Friday, 10am to 6pm. Saturday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.

gloriousspa.com Treatments, prices and online booking

A white and black timbered cottage with a steep tiled roof and bay windows, signed the glorious spa company, with flower beds along the front — The Glorious Spa Company, 155 Middleton Road.

Sourdough Sisters

138 Middleton Road

The cafe is open. A delicatessen is being fitted out in the unit on the left and will follow. By local account that unit was a delicatessen once before, so it is a shop returning to its old job. See Wendy, Michael and Peter.

Their website still says “launching soon”, so do not be put off by it. They do not publish opening hours, so call in and see.

A pair of gabled shopfronts signed Sourdough Sisters, with white framed windows and a green grass verge in front — Sourdough Sisters, 138 Middleton Road.

Allied Pharmacy

35 to 37 Elmer Road, PO22 6DZ

Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 6.30pm. Saturday, 9am to 5pm. Closed Sunday.

Pharmacy hours change, and the NHS page is kept current by the pharmacy itself, so check there before setting out with a prescription.

Allied Pharmacy on the NHS site Current hours and the services they offer

One Stop

41 Elmer Road, PO22 6DZ

Open every day, 7am to 10pm, which makes it the answer to most emergencies. There is a free cash machine outside and a Costa Express machine in the shop.

There is also a Salvation Army bank for clothes and shoes by the door, which is worth knowing: Arun have stopped taking textiles at the recycling points, so this is the nearest place to put them. See bins and recycling.

The One Stop shop on Elmer Road, a red fascia reading great value locally and open every day 7am to 10pm, with a cash machine and a Salvation Army clothing bank outside — One Stop, Elmer Road. The pharmacy is the white building beyond.

Mandarin Chef

9 Elmer Road, PO22 6DZ · 01243 586888 · Chinese takeaway

An unofficial listing gives 5pm to 10.30pm, closed Tuesdays, and carries the menu. It is not the restaurant’s own page and nobody has confirmed it, so treat it as a starting point and ring to be sure.

Menu and times on Restaurantji A third-party listing, not the restaurant’s own

Mandarin Chef, a small brick shop with a green awning and a green and yellow sign reading Mandarin Chef Chinese Take Away — Mandarin Chef.

Henry Adams

Middleton Road · estate agents

Worth knowing about if you are buying or selling locally.

henryadams.co.uk Branches, and current listings

STYL Middleton

07305 016095 · barbers

Next door to Brennan & Chatterton.

Brennan & Chatterton Estates

17 Elmer Road · 01243 984444 · sales, lettings and valuations

Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Saturday, 9am to 4pm.

Two shopfronts side by side: Brennan and Chatterton Estates with property details in the window, and STYL Middleton, a barber shop — Brennan & Chatterton, with STYL next door.

Further afield

Anything larger means Bognor Regis. The bins and recycling page covers the tip and the recycling point in the surgery car park.