This slide was originally posted on the Middlewich Town Council Facebook Group on the 19th August 2010 as a kind of 'trial run' for the 'Middlewich Diary' and we've had to borrow it back from there, as the original slide seems to have gone missing.
We originally dated this one as '1971/2' but we now know this is wrong, because at that time the buildings on the wharf hadn't been whitewashed. So we've revised the date to 'circa 1973'.
The buildings in our picture look a lot smarter than they do in the present day, and there are more of them. Particularly sad was the loss of the small building with the chimney, centre right, which was originally, I think, a small laundry (or 'wash-house'). It's last known use was as a handy surface for one of the explanatory boards for the Roman Middlewich Trail. This has now been relocated to the wall of the Leadsmithy Street bus-shelter a short distance away.
Note that, alongside the main warehouse building, attempts at smartening up the area by tree-planting have been made.
And looming over the warehouse are two of the large buildings in Lewin Street which disappeared a couple of years later to make way (eventually) for the Salinae clinic.
To the left is the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and, to the right, the C of E Infants School.
We won't make any further comment on the 'Gateway To Middlewich' scheme proposed for this area, except to say that we sincerely hope that it happens sooner rather than later.
SEE ALSO: TOWN WHARF CIRCA 1970
Wow, it looks so beautiful in that slide! I walk past Town Warf almost every day with the dog, and every day I gaze longingly at the remaining buildings and imagine what I could do with them, if only I had the funds... It really could bring so much to Middlewich if our authorities took some effort to develop the tourism aspect. Why not utilize our canals properly again, and celebrate them?
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