TWENTY years of dedicated research of the town's shops during the Victorian era has led to a brand new exhibition at Tavistock Museum.

What began as a hobby for Linda Elliott, a trustee of the museum, has now blossomed into an exhibition which will interest all ages.

Linda said she began collecting the shop advertisements and artefacts after people were asking her about how things may have looked in the town during the Victorian era.

'I was very interested in finding out stories from that time and I even took recordings of people and collected items,' she said.

The entrance to the museum is within the Guildhall complex and visitors can then make their way to the upstairs exhibition above Court Gate where they will be greeted by the many artefacts and photographs which Linda and the museum have collected over the years.

There are also carrier bags from local shops, which have since closed, and even some from shops which have survived the test of time.

Hundreds of adverts from newspapers and magazines from the 1870s to the 1970s are around the room to interest all generations. The adverts vary from 'cures for dandruff', an advert from 1872 in the Tavistock Gazette promoting a product to give luxurious hair and which would 'entirely remove dandruff and scurf' which in reality was just Devonshire cream; to 'why suffer to be beautiful', an advert from a tailor in 1933 called W Sweet and Sons for a 'comfortable' corset and an advert for H Pillar, a printer, stationer and book binder in 1903 and a 'Gentlewoman's' shoe shop.

Linda added: 'These shops were in the same family for generations — the shopkeepers knew everyone and it was a real community atmosphere.

'I have a recording of Mr and Mrs Tucker who lived in Tavistock all their lives and were recorded talking of their memories of shops in 1910.'

Linda has produced a book of many of her findings named 'Traders of Tavistock', available at the Museum reception.

The book covers Tavistock shops and their stories from 1870s to 1970s in detail; such as the story of Crebers.

John Carter, born in 1848, bought the premises on Brook Street in 1911 for £500. The shop was originally named 'Carters' and became 'Crebers' when his youngest daughter, Winifrid, and husband Henry Creber took over the shop. Henry transformed it from an old fashioned grocers to a delicatessen with wines and hampers.

It is thought to be one of the oldest shops in Tavistock. It stayed with the Creber family for 100 years and through four generations, give or take a few years. Although it retains the same name today it is now owned by Jack Brudnik.

The exhibition will run until October along with many other stationary exhibitions on Tavistock's history and mining at the museum.

For more information visit the website at http://www.tavistockmuseum.co.uk">www.tavistockmuseum.co.uk