Andrew Stone was born in the hamlet of Common Moor on May 13, 1862, and baptised there in the following month in the Bible Christian Chapel.

As a teenager Andrew worked as a tin miner in the Phoenix United Mine on Bodmin Moor, alongside his father and a younger brother. He had a change of career around the year 1900, when he became a Farmer at Bowden in St Neot, where he lived with his wife Elizabeth, daughters Elsie, Florence, Mary Jane and Annie, and a son, George.

Life on the farm ended about six years later in 1906, when ‘Stone’s Restaurant’ opened in the ten-roomed building on the corner of West Street and Barras Place. Andrew and Elizabeth’s aim was to create a ‘home from home’ restaurant which they succeeded in doing, evidenced by the fact that Stone’s remained in business for 57 years! Members of Liskeard Chess Club were regular customers; the club was formed there in 1926, so they’ll be celebrating their centenary next year.

Stone’s were regularly engaged as caterers for events in the Public Hall next door, including The Mayor’s Banquet, The Hunt Ball and The St John Ambulance fund raisers. They also offered outside catering, in the early days transporting their large marquee to venues by horse and cart. Any waste food was fed to the pigs they kept on land at Lanchard, a source of fresh pork and bacon for their customers.

Elizabeth died in 1942 and Andrew four years later aged 84. Their daughters Florence and Annie, assisted by their brother George, continued to run the popular restaurant successfully until their retirement in April 1963.

By Brian Oldham, Liskeard Museum volunteer and Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow