Len Mutton & Co

Few country stores can claim the continuity of this Wallace Street institution, trading since 1913 and run by four generations of the same family — one of the oldest family-owned businesses in New South Wales. Founded by Edward 'Teddy' Mutton and his wife Polly, it passed to their son Len in 1940 and today is managed by his granddaughter. The rambling premises still functions as a genuine general store, stocking clothing, kitchenware, haberdashery, toys and the kind of practical odds and ends that have largely vanished from small towns. Its survival owes much to Braidwood's protected streetscape — the whole town is heritage-listed — and to a loyal local trade, but the shop is also a destination in its own right for visitors drawn to its unbroken century of retailing.