Evie – Greythorn Central

Located in the garden bed opposite 270 Doncaster Road

From the earliest days, women played an important role in the Greythorn Shopping Centre, working tirelessly in family businesses, as bakers, chefs, cashiers, cosmeticians, hairdressers, and accountants, while others ran their own businesses. This statue celebrates all these women, with a stylishly dressed lady in vintage clothing, evoking the mid-century modern ambiance of the strip.

One of the early female proprietors was Lorna Lovett who opened the Centre’s first ‘frock’ shop in 1955, L’Ovette Boutique (264 Doncaster Road). It opened with a bang. Lorna organised a series of spring fashion parades to raise funds for local schools and clubs. The parades were a great marketing ploy and reflected the importance of the local community to the traders. Later Ruth Black, proprietor of the House of Maxwell Mouse, and Mrs Lyn Tobias, proprietor of Tobias Fashions also raised funds for local charities by staging fashion parades.

Across the Road was Evie Kay’s Toys (305 Doncaster Road). This successful business operated for 40 years selling toys, books, and games. It later moved to 321 Doncaster Road.

The statue’s plaque reads:

Hi, I’m Evie. I opened the first toy shop in Greythorn in the 1950s. The most popular toys were cyclops cars and scooters, bikes, and dolls’ prams. It was called Evie Kay’s.

Something to think about:

Evie is stylishly dressed in a vintage 1950s dress with a matching handbag, shoes and hat, to evoke the mid-century modern ambiance of the strip, which in the 1950s became ‘the business heart of Greythorn.’ Evie also represents the entrepreneurial and fashionable female proprietors who have established businesses in the strip. Mrs Lorna Lovette had opened the strip’s first frock shop in the late 1950s, while dancer Gay Wightman established her business in 1960.

See the G on Evie’s bag, it was used in Angela Polglaze’s Greythorn Icons sculptures. Stroll to the fire station where the Greythorn Icons statues are located, see if you can find the ‘G’ there too. Also make your way to the Trentwood strip of shops, look at the footpath and see where the Greythorn G is embedded.

Introduction | History of Greythorn | Meet the Faces of Greythorn | Project Creators