Adrian's

Record & Compact Disc Specialist

Adrian’s has been a feature of Wickford High Street for some decades. Although it is now based on one site, for some years it occupied a number of premises, selling records, videos, CDs and DVDs.

Adrian’s website describes the history of the business:

“We are an independent record store owned by Adrian Rondeau in Wickford, Essex. Adrian began trading in records in 1969 at various markets around Essex before moving into premises above Wickford market. Soon after, with the business growing rapidly, Adrian’s moved into larger premises in Wickford High Street in 1980, part of which the business still occupies to this day. By the late 1980s Adrian’s was the largest independent record store in the U.K.

From the earliest days of the business Adrian’s has also run a specialist mail order service, shipping records to all four corners of the globe. In the pre-internet days we produced a yearly catalogue along with quarterly newsletters which were must-haves for record collectors across the world. We now run an online store alongside our Amazon Marketplace and Ebay stores.”

In 1989 Adrian received the award of Sell Through Retailer of the Year at the British Videogram Association awards dinner held at The Hilton Hotel in London.The awards ceremony was the highlight of ‘Video 89’ – the annual trade exhibition and show for the video industry, opened by the Home Secretary at the time, Douglas Hurd. The photograph below shows Adrian (on the right) receiving his award from John Hayward, editor of Video Business. The second picture below from the Evening Echo archive shows Adrian in August 1987. He was concerned about vandalism at that time as indicated by the broken shop sign and considered leaving the town.

 

Article that appeared in the "Woodham and Wickford Chronicle", November 23, 1979.

Comments about this page

Add your own comment

  • Adrian Rondeau has posted on social media that he is retiring sometime in 2023

    By Geoff Whiter (12/11/2022)
  • I also spent many hours in here. Remember buying Emerson Lake and Palmer Welcome back my friends triple album here, and many other prog rock records as well.

    By GARY TOWNSEND (24/01/2021)
  • I spent many hours and pounds in Adrian’s as a teenager in the 70s. I remember there was a copy of ‘Slayed’ by Slade that I always wanted, but never did buy…..is it still there?

    By Kevin Mears (04/05/2019)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.