On the right is Evans' Parade Restaurant and Cafe and the large sign board next to the window on the first floor announces that it can seat 300 people. In the early 1920s John Evans ran the confectionery shop on the left hand side and his brother Walter was a tobacconist^[1]. Frank Clay remembered chocolate figures of cowboys and policemen being on display when he was a boy^[2]. John's daughter Belle and her husband Harold Charles Crowder^[3] took over and although the business was often referred to locally as Crowder's Parade Restaurant it still kept the Evans' name. An advertisement from Harold Crowder's time, when they had just enlarged the premises, is below.

Next door was the Central Restaurant, run for many years by Frederic Dalton^[4]. In 1932 Messrs. Dalton & Sons announced that they had accommodation for picnic parties of 500. There was a lock up shop run by Miss Grace Cardin between the entrances to the two Cafes^[5]. Mr. Dalton's daughter, Mrs. Latimer, eventually took over at the Central Cafe and incorporated the lock up shop into her cafe^[2].

On the other side of the passageway leading to Valley Steps (which is just level with the lamp post) is the only single storey building on the Parade. Long gone are the smart dining rooms run by Charles Etches and then George Ratcliffe that had occupied the premises before the First World War (see links on the right). At the time this photograph was taken it appears to be divided into either two, or maybe three, and the sign above the shop unit closest to the camera advertises E. J. Steeples, Butcher. There are trestles outside his shop as he was also a general dealer^[6]. Another sign is mostly obscured from view but it is below the semicircular shape on the roof line. It could say News, but that is speculative.

There is then the rather narrow two storey unit that afterwards became the Canadian Stores^[7]; on the far side of the shop doorway is a pillar box which had been removed a few years later. Jutting out from the half of Rockvale House closest to the camera (i.e. the next tall building) is a sign for Matlock Bath Post office which was replaced by the Prom Cafe.

1930s advertisements, for Evans' Parade Restaurant and Dalton's Central Cafe, from the Official Matlock Guide are below.

References (coloured links go to on site transcripts):

^[1] John Evans, Belle's father, was mentioned in the London Gazette of 1896 | in the 1891 census | the 1901 census. John Evans' sister Isabel was married to Albert Graves of the Albion restaurant and his daughter Belle was living at the Albion at the time of the 1901 census. Also see Isabel and her other brother Walter in the 1891 census. Walter Evans was at the Parade Restaurant in Kelly's 1908 Directory. John and Walter were both listed there in Kelly's 1916 Directory but by 1922 Walter was a tobacconist whereas John was a confectioner and restaurateur. Also see the Evans and Crowder MI

^[2] Recollections of the late Mr. Frank Clay, from notes taken by Mrs. Doreen Buxton.

^[3] Harold Charles Crowder was a boy at the time of the 1901 census. He died on 26 Mar 1961, aged 69; he was still living at Parade House. Belle pre-deceased him, dying at the Derby Royal Infirmary on 15 Dec 1947.

^[4] The Dalton family owned the Central Restaurant in the 1901 census. They'd already been in the restaurant trade for some years and continued at the Central Restaurant for many years (see both 19th Century Directories and 20th Century Directories elsewhere on this website). They were the same family who ran Dalton's record and television shops in Crown Square, Matlock; the family also had shops at both Derby and Leicester.

^[5] Frances & Grace Cardin advertised Kelly's Directories of 1922 and 1925, and Grace Cardin only advertised in Kelly's 1928 Directory.

^[6] Ernest James Steeples, known as Jimmie, advertised in Kelly's Directory of 1925. In 1931 his name was published in the London Gazette as being both a butcher and a general dealer. This explains the trestles outside his shop.

^[7] George Washington Stoddart was to run the Canadian Stores and the Prom Cafe.