Model village unveils new sweet shop
Gilberts has been serving sweets to generations of the city’s children
A SHOP which for over a century has served sweets to generations of children has been immortalised as part of Southsea Model Village.
Gilberts Sweet Shop in Eastney Road, Eastney has been providing customers with their daily fix of wine gums, cola cubes and more since 1909.
The shop is close to the heart of Model Village co-owner, Mark Wilson, 46, who remembers going as a child and now takes his own children.
After the shop was unveiled on Friday as the village’s latest addition, Mark said: ‘Gilberts is such an iconic shop. As a child I used to order my favourite sweets – chocolate peanuts. It’s a traditional style, with all the jars of sweets and they weigh out the amount and serve them to you in a paper bag.
‘We had a space in the village and we unanimously agreed it should be Gilberts.’
The family shop, now run by Lara Gilbert, 45, has spanned three generations and was previously run by her father, Brian, and grandfather, George. The shop first opened in the Edwardian era and was originally owned by the Hostler family who married into the Gilberts.
Lara said: ‘The shop is a big part of the community and it’s fantastic to be part of the model village. My father passed away but I’m looking forward to taking my mother, Margaret, to see it.’
The model was painstakingly pieced together by Mark’s mother and father, Ian and Phyliss, and goes into minute detail – including Rambo, the much-loved shop Alsatian.
Lara added: ‘The detail looks amazing – even seeing Rambo sat in the doorway. Unfortunately he died 15 years ago but he was really popular with customers.’
With the model village now reopened, customers can go and see the new addition.
Mark said: ‘I’m really pleased with the results. I think it’s the best model we’ve done.’
After Mark posted images of the original and model shops on Facebook, posters were so impressed they found it difficult to distinguish which was the real shop.
One poster commented: ‘Took me a while to notice the pictures were of the model and the original. Wonderful.’
The model village has now reopened after lockdown.