Memories of  Middlewich Civic Hall

By Dave Roberts

Adapted from ‘Middlewich Civic Hall – the first twenty five years’ as published in the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter, October 1994.

MIDDLEWICH CIVIC HALL - Photo CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL

Author’s note:

When this article first appeared in the Heritage Society Newsletter I gave it the title ‘Middlewich Civic Hall – the first twenty-five years’, which might well have led people to expect a detailed account of EVERYTHING which happened there between September 1969 and October 1994.

 Although people have, as we have proved with the ‘Middlewich Diary’. a high tolerance for Middlewich trivia, that would have been too much for even the most avid Middlewich fan to take.

 The article was really just a first-hand eye-witness account of the Hall’s opening on September 12^th 1969 with a few details of the slightly fraught pre-opening period (kindly supplied by Albert Robinson, by the way) and a couple of other memories of occasions when I was there as MC of a rock concert and the first Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival, and so I have edited and re-written it accordingly.

The Civic Hall will be in the news again during 2012 as the Town Council gets involved in taking over its running from Cheshire East, and I thought it would be appropriate, for our last Middlewich Diary entry of 2011, to go back to the beginning.

The article is also appropriate for New Year’s Eve because it mentions the fight between the Young Farmers and the Cerebos Foods Transport Social Club (won, as you’ll see, by the Cerebos faction) for the honour of hosting the very first New Year Party at Middlewich Civic Hall forty-two years ago tonight on the 31^st December 1969.

I was at the Civic Hall on the day it opened in 1969, and twenty-one years later, in 1990, had the privilege of presenting the main concert at the town’s brand-new Folk & Boat Festival at the same venue.

Even before it opened, Middlewich’s new ‘showpiece’ was causing controversy.

Cerebos Foods Transport Social Club was at daggers drawn with the Young Farmer’s Club over the booking of the Hall for New Year’s Eve 1969.

The Cerebos faction were insisting that Clerk to the Council, Mr Joseph Alcock, had confirmed the booking, whereas the Establishment Committee were determined that the Hall should be let to the YFC who intended to hold a public dance.

Eventually, Cerebos won the day. They had, after all, splashed out £40 to hire a band, and this was ‘not refundable’.

And as if all this were not enough the sink unit chosen for the hall was the subject of heated debate.

Councillor Fred Stallard described the sink as ‘paltry’ and implied that, as council surveyor Donald Stubbs, who had ordered the sink, was a bachelor, he was ‘not well-versed in the field of washing up’.

Mr Stubbs retorted that even a bachelor could be interested in cooking.

Acting Deputy Clerk Terry Fitton was instructed to advertise the fact that the MUDC was offering free use of the hall to local organisations during its first week.

Meanwhile, probably oblivious to all the small town politics surrounding the Civic Hall, contractors Lanner Ltd of Wakefield were putting the finishing touches to the building and Charlesworths of Crewe were installing the sound system and stage lighting.

A firm of signwriters were asked to make a commemorative plaque to be unveiled by Council Chairman Wilfrid Faulkner – a plaque which, as it turned out, contained an unfortunate spelling error which was to cause red faces at the opening ceremony.

In what would nowadays be called the ‘run up’ to the opening of the hall, fresh controversy erupted.
Why, asked the Chamber of Trade & Commerce, had local shopkeepers not been asked to tender for the equipping and decorating of the hall? Even the flowers for the opening ceremony had been obtained from Winsford.

The Council replied that local traders had been asked to supply flowers and had been unable to do so – a reply which could have been predicted.

Despite all this wrangling, plans went ahead for the grand opening, which was to take place on Friday September 12^th 1969.

I was working in the Rates Office at Middlewich UDC at the time (starting salary at 16 £330 per annum) and I have good reason to remember the day the Civic Hall opened.. It was my 17^th birthday, and this meant I was in line for a pay rise (salary at 17 £380 per annum in accordance with Clerical Division Grade 1).

We were all given the afternoon off  to attend the grand opening. There were plates of ham and salmon sandwiches and some little puff pastry things which, we were assured, were ‘vol-au-vents’.

Small glasses of sherry were proffered, and we all stood around eagerly awaiting the opening ceremony.

I have been unable to find any written evidence for this, but I am pretty sure that the music in the afternoon was supplied by Percy Bailey and His Band, in what must have been one of their last appearances. Contemporary reports say that the afternoon music was provided by the Secondary School Band, but I don’t remember them, just the Percy Bailey Band. I even remember talking to Percy and one of the councillors patting him on the back and saying, ‘well done. Percy!’

Bailey’s Band was the mainstay of Middlewich music for many years and Percy himself was famous for his habit of propping his copy of the Evening Sentinel on the music stand of his piano and reading it intently throughout every dance session.

As we know, our minds can play tricks as we get older, but this is such a vivid memory that there’s no doubt in my mind that Percy and his Band were there and, if that fact is not recorded elsewhere, I’m glad to do it here.

When it came to the unveiling of the commemorative plaque, to the consternation of council officials and the amusement of Mr Faulkner, his name had been spelt WILFRED instead of WILFRID, something that, he said, had happened to him all his life.

A council spokesman said later that the mistake had been noticed but it had been too late to get the wording altered in time.

Update (October 2019) A recent inspection of that very same commemorative plaque fifty years on shows that the correction promised at the time is still yet to be done!

Mr Malcolm Bowden, chairman of the Establishment Committee, paid tribute to Councillor Clarence Costello who, he said, had fathered the whole project.

The new Civic Hall was now well and truly open and, in the evening, there was a special Celebration Dance featuring ‘the Ray Douglas Music’ (tickets fifteen shillings including refreshments).

This was, remember, September 1969.

By February 1970 Mr Bowden was accusing the public of ‘letting the council down’.

The Hall had been let on only a ‘tiny’ number of occasions and this was ‘heartbreaking’.

Perhaps the high charges were to blame? To hire the Hall for a whole day on a Friday or a Saturday would set you back £20.

A series of ‘beat dances’ came to an abrupt halt in January 1970 after ‘rowdyism’ and, for most of its first twenty-five years of existence the Hall was under-used, though Middlewich's representative on the old Cheshire County Council, Derek Millington, organised a series of under-18s discos at the hall in the late seventies/early eighties.
Kevin Birchall writes: 'I will always remember the under-18s discos, late 70s early 80s. Always packed, thanks to Derek'
And Julie-Ann Goryl says, 'I remember (probably prompted more by photos) a Silver Jubilee Party in 1977 where the children all dressed up. Then many happy memories of the youth club there, followed by the Friday night disco in the 1980s, which was a 'must attend' event every week.'

Over that twenty-five years I made several appearances at the Civic Hall, as disc-jockey, compere and MC.

One memorable occasion was the night I introduced a Rock Concert in aid of the CND, featuring a band with the cheerful name of Death Wish.

The highlight of this strange (and deafening) evening came when the band decided to let off a ‘thunderflash’ – a kind of detonator affair which made a terrifyingly loud band, a bright blue flash and a vast amount of smoke.

I was about six inches  away from the thing at the time and, although I had been warned about it, I was still very nearly thrown off the stage by the explosion.

And when the first Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival took place in 1990 I was there, along with Bernard Wrigley to present the first of many mainstage concerts for a festival which helped  kick off the long, slow and laborious process of putting our town back on the map.

© Dave Roberts/Salt Town Productions 2011/2026

31^st December 2011

UPDATE - 19th March 2013: Ownership of the Middlewich Civic Hall passed into the hands of Congleton Borough Council on the 1st April 1974. Thirty-five years later, on the 1st April 2009, it became the property of Cheshire East Council. Finally (we hope) it was taken over by Middlewich Town Council, successor council to the Middlewich UDC which had had it built in 1969. This was in March 2013 and  rather fittingly, the 'Civic Hall' then became the Town Hall Function Suite. At the same time the Victoria Building, home for many years to Middlewich's council offices was officially given the name it should have had for all those years, the Town Hall. 

UPDATE - 12TH October 2016: By 2016 the running of the hall had been taken over by the Middlewich Community Trust* and the hall was renamed the Victoria Hall, a pleasing reference to its links with the Victoria Building and the former Victoria Square, the name given to the land between the building and Lewin Street.

*not 'Middlewich Heritage Trust' as we erroneously said earlier. Many thanks to Ken
Kingston for pointing this out.

First published New Years Eve 2011
Re-published New Years Eve 2014
Re-formatted and updated 12th October 2016
Re-published New Years Eve 2017, New Years Eve 2018
12th September 2019 (the hall's fiftieth anniversary)
Updated and re-published 14th July 2026

MHS REVISITED 1990: 1969 AND ALL THAT...

1990

Another delve into the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter archives, when we were looking at the momentous events of twenty-one years earlier, in 1969. Momentous, that is, as far as Middlewich was concerned. There's no mention of the Moon Landings, but the hourly pay rate of cleaners at Chadwick Court is included, as is the news of ERF Limited's plans for part of the old ICI Soda Ash works site. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the future delights mentioned in this article also appear in our companion article concerning the events of 1970 which you can find here

Based on newspaper cuttings collected by the late Albert Robinson

by Dave Roberts

1968 ended portentously. Just before Christmas the dreaded 'yellow peril' hit Middlewich, as the County Council introduced 'No Waiting' restrictions in Wheelock Street. This was expected to help solve the town's horrendous traffic problems.

In many ways the end of the sixties was the end of an era for Middlewich. The old method of making salt had died out, but British Salt were expected to have their £3 million factory open in the Autumn.

Other great schemes were also in the offing in 1969, all of which are now taken for granted (or were in 1990 - ed)

August was to see the start of the new inner by-pass (St Michael's Way), expected to cost £220,000

 April would see the completion of the Civic Hall, built by the UDC for the princely sum of £30,000 (the cost later 'rocketed' to £40,000).

The County Council also planned to build a new fire station, and the GPO were to introduce an automatic telephone exchange.

In February the news broke that the 'Sandbach Motor Engineering Firm', ERF Limited, had applied for planning permission for a spares and service depot on part of the disused ICI soda ash works site. ERF promised to build the depot on the understanding that the Council would improve Brooks Lane to provide a proper access road.

Middlewich Council were advertising for part-time cleaners at Chadwick Court. The successful applicants would work a ten hour week for 4s 9d an hour. General labourers in the Council's Parks & Open Spaces Department were paid £14 5s 10d per week, in accordance with the NJC for Local Authorities Services.

Also in 1969 the town's Crown Post Office closed and the sub post office which replaced it began its nomadic wanderings around the town. The first sub postmistress was Mrs Beryl Lees who ran the Central Warehouse at 29 Wheelock Street.

In June the wonders of modern technology came to the town, and Middlewich's telephone subscribers (800 in all) were linked up to the S.T.D. equipment in the new automatic exchange. The first call was made by the Chairman of the Council, Mr Wilfrid Faulkner.

In July the subject of local government re-organisation was in the air. The Maud Report was proposing a 'Super Council' covering Sale and East Cheshire on which Middlewich would have had only one representative (in 1970 Middlewich Councillors were to hold discussions with Northwich and Winsford Councillors on the idea of a Mid-Cheshire Authority. A second-best plan including Knutsford was also considered.
On Friday 12th September the new Civic Hall was opened by Council Chairman Wilfrid Faulkner.

You could hire the hall for an evening for £10 on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, £12 on Wednesday and £15 on Friday and Saturday. There was dancing on the opening night to 'The Ray Douglas Music'.
Middlewich was about  to move forward into the 1970s...
© Dave Roberts/Salt Town Productions 2011


Postscript:
Also in 1969 a young Mr David Gareth Roberts left school and, after an excruciatingly embarrassing and unsuccessful interview at the NatWest Bank, began work at the MUDC's Rates Office.
September the 12th, the day of the Civic Hall's opening, was my 17th birthday. I'm sure I remember the legendary Percy Bailey Band playing in the hall in the afternoon, but I can find no confirmation of this. -DGR

Originally published 29th November 2011

Reformatted and republished 14th March 2025

PEPPER STREET , EARLY 1969 (2)

Once again we find ourselves in Pepper Street in 1969 with a picture which should help to make the layout of things clearer.
(The white 'flashes' to the left, by the way, are caused by damage to the original Kodachrome film, illustrating all too clearly why we need to preserve this collection wiihout delay). The houses to the left are what now makes up modern-day Pepper Street. For the first time, at the end of the row, we can see the side wall of Seddon's office building. On the right of the picture is the end of the row of cottages which have been replaced by our famous 'grass verge'. What's the building to the left of them with the tall, central chimney, just above the Robin Reliant?


This photo was first published on Facebook on 26th April 2011. 

The original Facebook feedback is below:


Geraldine Williams Oh yes! that side wall of the Seddon's offices was the perfect place to hone one's twosie, or even threesie, tennis ball skills! Not sure about the other building. Some demolition had obviously taken place where the chain-link fencing stands (and the forlorn figure sits!) so it's a bit out of context for my recollection.

Dave Roberts I've been waiting for someone to tell me it's not a Robin, but a Regal Supervan or something.Colin Derek Appleton Is that building the pub that was called the Lord Hood ?

Geraldine Williams Yes, according to Google.

(Editor's note: In fact subsequent research indicates that the Lord Hood actually stood on the waste ground where the Reliant car (can be seen).

Colin Derek Appleton Cool! cant take all the credit though, my dad told me the locations of all the vanished pubs when i was a boy !!

Geraldine Williams I understand that the pubs near the salt works used to open at 5.00am to enable nightshift workers to re-hydrate after working on the open pans.

Colin Derek Appleton That's very possible. My Grandfather worked on the pans in the Pepper Street works as well as working for Seddon on his fleet of boats.

First published 10th July 2011

Reformatted and re-published 3rd November 2018

LAWRENCE AVENUE 1969

One of those street scenes in which nothing really seems to have changed much but which, on closer examination, has altered considerably. In 1969 Lawrence Avenue was one entity - an unadopted road linking Wheelock Street with Webbs Lane. The coming of  St Michael's Way in the early 70s cut the Avenue in half and necessitated the demolition of several properties, including the white building in the middle of the picture, and a huge wooden fence cordoning it off from the new dual carriageway. The buildings in the foreground of our 1969 shot are now part of Lawrence Avenue West and those beyond St Michael's Way constitute Lawrence Avenue East. Note the elegant swan necked concrete street lamp. This was still in existence in 2011 and a similar specimen once graced Seabank.*
The building on the extreme left is now Brooks & Bostock Jewellers Shop, a block of new garages has been built on the right, and there have been various other changes on the Lawrence Avenue scene.
Nowadays, for many people, the words 'Lawrence Avenue' mean only one thing - a trip to the dentist. I'm one of them and I'll take the opportunity of my next check up to procure a modern day version of the scene for a 'Then & Now' feature.

But there's more to Lawrence Avenue/Lawrence Gardens than meets the eye. When this posting was first written I made the assumption that Lawrence Avenue was named after Charles Frederick Lawrence, the late Middlewich historian and Clerk to the Council. But it was Charles Frederick Lawrence himself who made Neolithic discoveries in 'Lawrence Gardens', so the name predates him.

And there are records of people from Lawrence Gardens buried in Middlewich Cemetery going back long before CFL's time. But when did Lawrence Gardens become Lawrence Avenue?
See Facebook Feedback below. -ed

Photo: Middlewich Heritage
Society

Charles Frederick Lawrence was born in 1873 and was, from a very early age, interested in the history of Middlewich. After being employed at several local firms he became clerk to the Urban District Council in 1904. He retired in 1938 and died in 1940.
Among his written works  are 'A History Of  Middlewich' (1895), 'The Annals of Middlewich' (1912) and 'Middlewich Doings In Olden Days (1925). He also wrote  poetry, including anthologies of patriotic verse published by the UDC and sent out to  the trenches during World War I.

'CFL' was a pioneer in Middlewich local history, and one of the inspirations for the Middlewich Heritage Society in the 1980s.

(acknowledgments to Alan Earl for some of this information. A fuller biography of C. F. Lawrence appears on page 55 of 'Middlewich 1900-1950')

*This lamp was replaced by a modern LED lamp on 26th January 2017

Facebook feedback:

Geraldine Williams It always used to be called 'Lawrence Gardens'. When did it get the 'Avenue' status?

Dave Roberts A very good point. And I thought for a moment I'd made one of those embarrassing slip-ups which occur when I rely on my memory. But no - it is definitely called Lawrence Avenue East & West. Was I making an assumption, too, when I said that the road was named after C F Lawrence? According to Wikipedia it was CFL himself who made archaeological discoveries 'in Lawrence Gardens', so the name must pre-date him. These are deep waters, and I sense another epic struggle to get to the bottom of things.
‎...still, we did it with Sharon's cafe, didn't we?
Here's one clue: When the road was sliced in half and the Wheelock Street end became 'Lawrence Avenue West', the word 'West' was added on a separate sign, so it must have been an 'Avenue' prior to the early 70s, if you get my drift.



Geraldine Williams Charles Frederick and his wife Kitty's house was actually off Lawrence Gardens, and had a large orchard. If you come in from the Webb's (who were they???!!!) Lane end there's a big house on the right where the Bennion family lived and a bungalow built sideways on (I don't know if it's still there) and this path led on to the Lawrence house. I can just about remember Kitty. She was a St Mary's parishioner.

According to a Google site, Charles Frederick and two other brothers, Augustine and Thomas, were the sons of John Lawrence and his second wife Hannah. John, a joiner/builder lived in Wheelock Street but the 1901 Census shows him being retired and having moved to Lawrence Gardens. Perhaps he built the house there and Charles Frederick eventually inherited the family home.

See also: NOW and THEN: LAWRENCE AVENUE

First published 7th September 2011

Re-formatted and re-published 19th October 2018

• • 
    

SEDDONS SALT WORKS IN BROOKS LANE, EARLY 1969

It was a headline in the 'Middlewich Chronicle' in 1967 which inspired this series of slides. I well recall my Dad showing the front page to my Uncle Jim: CUT LUMP SALT WORKS TO CLOSE said the headline, over an article which told us all that the three remaining Seddons Works were to be closed down (Murgatroyd's had closed a year before, in 1966). It was decided then that, as big changes were on the way, they should be recorded. We decided to buy a Kodak Instamatic camera. These little cameras were all the rage at the time and, though far from the best you could buy, they were relatively cheap and very easy to use. They also gave very good results with Kodachrome film cartridges. We always thought the square picture format was a bit strange, particularly as the film in the cartridges was actually standard 35mm. This is one of our earlier efforts; Seddon's Salt Works in Brooks Lane in 1969, two years after closure.




This picture was first published on Facebook on 7th May 2011

The original Feedback is below and is well worth reading.

Colin Derek Appleton The old Brooks Lane !!! a bit of this original road still exists behind the tank wash. My dad grew up in a house which stood opposite these works roughly about where you can see the Seddons logo, there was a row of canal side cottages which were demolished late 40's or early 50's by which time my dad had moved up to moss drive.


Dave Roberts Seddon's works in Pepper Street and Wych House Lane have vanished from the face of the earth (although there is a gateway into the lawned area below the Salinae centre off Wych House Lane which once formed part of the works) but the Brooks Lane works is still recognisable as a former salt works. Much of the brickwork of the outer walls, for example, remains and currently gives protection to Tarmac Readycrete. In the right background you can see the lettering on the water tanks reading 'SEDDON'S SALT WORKS'. The signwriting was done by craftsmen from Wych House Lane.

Dave Roberts  The 'Men At Work' signs and the vast amount of mud around the place are indicators that the Brooks Lane widening scheme was in full swing. Note how narrow the original roadway was. The road widening scheme enabled the creation of the Brooks Lane Industrial Estate we know today.

Colin Derek Appleton I remember as a kid sitting on the canal bank watching the steeplejacks knock the last of the chimineys down brick by brick, starting at the top of course !!!!

Dave Roberts ‎...and out of sight to the right, behind the embankment, is a small spur off the Trent & Mersey Canal (where the canal makes a right-angled turn to descend towards the town centre). This was originally a loading bay, served by a tramway from the salt works across the road. It will have fallen into disuse when the railway came along, but still exists today as a dry dock.


Geraldine Williams  Fred Dibnah would have had a field day...! (Did once see him in the Boar's Head tho')

Ian Murfitt Demolishing brick by brick from the bottom is much quicker. When I was a kid they demolished the Burwell brick factory near my home in the fens. Being remote they chose to blow it up. Being the fens we had a brilliant view from 7 miles away. KERBOOM ! What more could an 8 year old boy want?


Geraldine Williams Nah! Fred + fire + klaxon + 'Did you like that?' : Priceless!


Ian Murfitt  PARP ! Reet lets go to the Pub!


Dave Roberts We've more of Seddon's chimneys to come (of course). but here's a thing: a fellow I was talking to in the Kings Arms one night in the 1970s, who had been born and brought up in Middlewich and knew the town 'like the back of me hand' was prepared to bet me anything I liked that all of Seddon's chimneys were round rather than square. Isn't it funny how the mind plays tricks? I didn't take his money. Or more likely he wouldn't give it to me...
And talking of Fred, I was watching a re-run of the Fred Dibnah Story on Yesterday recently, and it was noticeable that, in most cases, he never had time to blow his klaxon, being too busy running for his life to avoid being engulfed in tons of bricks.
 The last episode was entitled 'Approaching Sixty' and I sat smugly watching the now somewhat aged Fred talking about 'slowing down' and 'taking things a bit easier'. Poor old Sod, I thought. Then I suddenly realised how old I am myself. Bummer.


Ian Murfitt People think that he parped the horn to warn by standers that the chimney was falling actually, it was a signal to the pub on the corner "I'm still alive..Get em in!"


Jonathan Williams And of course the Murgatroyd's brine pump was sited just to the east of the tankwash and exists to this day. The Town Council, led by our Heritage Officer Kerry Fletcher is working up a Conservation Management Plan for the pump and its housing as we speak. There will be a very interesting display and exhibition at the Town Wharf during the FAB Festival 17-19 June. It is the only known example of a pump remaining in situ, ie sitting over its shaft. Piecing the past together.....it's not just a strapline...for Middlewich Town Council, it's a philosophy. And quite right too !!


Dave Roberts‎...it's a very good strapline, too, though. I did an audio job for Kerry a while ago, editing and transferring to CD an interview George Twigg (he of Salt Museum fame) did with one of the pump's operators in about 1967, after the works had closed but the pump was being used to pump brine up to the Murgatroyd's Works in Booth Lane (recently demolished). In the background can be heard the sound of the pump operating and, amazingly, the sound of trains passing by on the Sandbach-Northwich Railway, at least one of them steam-hauled. It's great to be able to preserve these little moments of history.



Editor's Note: Colin Derek Appleton did some research into the 'round versus square' chimney question to find out why the salt works ones always seemed to be square. The answer appears as part of the feedback to another photo, but is remarkably simple: Salt works chimneys were designed as part of the works and were built into the salt works walls as part of the works' structure. It was thus easier to build them square rather than round.

First published 9th July 2011

Re-formatted and re-published 26th May 2018

THE RED LION 1969

First published on Facebook 29th April 2011

by Dave Roberts

Here's one for owners of the  new apartments at the top of Wheelock Street to hang on their walls. 
It shows the old Red Lion on the corner of Wheelock Street and Nantwich Road as it was in 1969.
Note the CHESTERS neon sign and the off-licence, or 'OFF SALES', department.

Many pubs had these before the advent of...er...off-licences. 
There was, for example, one at The Vaults (or Brown's Vaults) at around the same time as this photo was taken.

Note also, to the right, the long-gone Yeowart's grocery shop on the corner of Nantwich Road and Chester Road and the total absence of gardens and dangerous road junctions in front of the pub.

Here's the other side of the shop, seen from Nantwich Road:

For a full description of this photo, click here

In our drinking glory days we had some epic nights in the old Red Lion, particularly when the legendary Ted Hussey was the landlord.
It was there that I first saw the folk band Cheshire Folk in the early 1970s – twenty years before the Folk & Boat Festival was even a gleam in anyone's eye.
And in 1977 I did a few  Sunday evening discos there after a recommendation from the late lamented Frank Robinson. It was the year Elvis died, and we spent a lot of time crying into our beer and playing his records, along with a new 'waxing' which at the time I thought was dire -  I Remember Elvis Presley by Danny Mirror. Our version was a 12 in coloured vinyl pressing. Time and age has mellowed my opinion, though, and the song now mostly inspires affection and nostalgia, not only for Elvis but for those early 'Dees Disco' days around the pubs of Middlewich.

I REMEMBER ELVIS PRESLEY (Danny Mirror)
YouTube link
(Not for the fainthearted)

It's easy to forget at this distance of time, but 'The King's' reign, from the time he burst on the scene in the 50s to his early demise in 1977 was a mere 20-odd years.

But the Red Lion at that time was not really a place for a disco, particularly on a Sunday evening.
Reg Bunn summed it all up perfectly when he asked me, 'what do they do - rattle their dominoes in time with the music?'
By 1979 I had moved to The Vaults and spent three fraught but basically happy years playing disco music to a (usually) more appreciative crowd. But that's a story for another time...

The Red Lion meanwhile moved on through a series of transmogrifications and failed experiments, aimed at finding a new format.
Most of these involved nailing old doors and other bits of rubbish on the ceilings and plastering the walls with 'jokes' and fake notices. These were, as a friend remarked, mostly 'about as funny as a rupture'.

The pub became the Cat's Whiskers, the Tut & Shive, the Tap & Spile and probably a few more before, briefly, reverting back to the Red Lion and then becoming the rather more successful Cats Bar for its final few years.
Now its pub days are gone, along with all the memories and it has become 'Lion House', a rather unlikely apartment building.

The old stable block (seen to the right of the picture) and the bowling green to its rear have also gone to be replaced by town houses.

Thus does poor old Middlewich pass from glory.

At least the building itself survives, albeit shorn of most of its interesting adornments and character.

Originally published 13th July 2011
Revised and re-published 17th August 2015

Facebook Feedback

When this Diary entry was re-published in August 2015 there was a great reaction from many people who remembered what we like to call the pub's 'glory days' - the days when, if you had a Saturday night out at the Red Lion, you knew you'd had a night out...

Anita Jane Keal I grew up on Nantwich Road, not far from the Red Lion, where the flats are now. I have such wonderful memories of this era, and  pictures like this bring a tear to my eye. In one such picture I saw Dad's old car parked outside our house. Now that did make me cry!

Dave Roberts I lived in Nantwich Road myself, at number 53, from 1952 to 1959. My sister lives just a few doors away from there now.

Anita Jane Keal It was such a wonderful era when we were kids - so carefree! Mind you, I did escape to play footie one day when I was five and got hit by a car outside our house, number 25. I still have the scars too! Dad worked in the Red Lion as a waiter for Ted. Then, as I got older, I worked there too, from 1986 to 1988

Debbie Fox My Mum still lives in the same house as I grew up in. I have very fond memories of playing on the park with the massive slide. Had a few fab nights in the Red Lion!

Dave Thompson Happy Days! Our first house was number 25.

Christine Ruscoe Yeowarts! I'm glad others remember this shop too!

Dave Prince Not as old as you, Mrs!

Jacqui Cooke I used to go in there for a quick one with my friends on a Friday and Saturday night while waiting for the bus to Mr Smith's Club in Winsford.

Craig Whitney What does the red sign say?

Dave Roberts The one at the top, underneath the attic window, says RED LION; the other one says CHESTERS - by then part of Whitbread.

Craig Whitney Was Chesters a pub chain or brewery?

Paul Stevens It's a brewery:

'Back in 1959 mild accounted for 42% of beer brewed. Twenty years later it was down to 10%, and today it's probably much less than that. Initially this steep decline was largely the result of selective advertising on bitter beers, but until the late 1970s most brewers still produced at least one mild.
Its last strongholds now are the Midlands and the North-West, especially the Manchester area. Its popularity there is perhaps typified by Chesters 'Fighting' Mild as it was endearingly known. Once a delicious dark mild - so dark that the first time you walked into a pub selling it you would be convinced everyone was drinking draught Guinness. The 'fighting' tag seems to be derived from typical scenes inside and out at the average Chesters House! Chesters was, sadly, closed by Whitbread in the 1980s.'

Colin Dutton I was born and bred at number one Nantwich Road, right next door, and I'm sure I was fed Whitbread bitter as a baby! They had a fantastic bowling green, as I remember. Chesters was a beer - bitter or mild.

Bernie O'Neill I remember it well, living there for 18 years and being crossed over the road to got to Yeowart's shop. Good picture! Dave, I must sort through those old films. There are lots of scenes showing trips to the races etc. from the Red Lion in the good old days!

Dave Costello (August 2017) Fond memories. I was born next door at number 1 Nantwich Road. At that time Mr Garner was the licensee. The pub and bowling green were my playground as my mate, Peter Gallimore, was the grandson of the landlord. Upstairs there was a billiard room. In the early days of the Ted Hussey era the pub had no music licence, but the lounge and bar were packed ever night. The lounge had table service, the waiters wearing very smart white 'Chesters' jackets. Sunday lunchtime, Tom Ryan, Ted's brother-in-law, would have twenty or thirty pints of mild ready pulled for the queue outside awaiting the mid day opening!
From Nantwich Road we moved across to Oddfellows Passage and from there to Cemetery Cottage in Chester Road where my dad was sexton. Three houses in a few years, and we'd hardly moved a hundred yards! At least I kept the same friends!

Delia Smith (August 2017) We used to go round as kids to the 'off sales' to get pop. There was always a lady in there with her dog, with a half of something.




First published 17th August 2015
Updated and re-published 22nd August 2017

• 
  

FORTY-EIGHT YEARS ON - WYCH HOUSE LANE

by Dave Roberts

It's hard to  believe that the two photos above show exactly the same place.
Forty-eight years separate the two shots - nearly half a century in which Middlewich, like every other town, has seen immense changes.
We're standing next to the bottom lock of the Brooks Lane flight and looking down towards the Town Wharf, Middlewich Church and, in the first picture Seddon's closed Wych House Lane salt works, in the second the Salinae Clinic and its grounds.
The problem with any modern day view of Middlewich is immediately apparent; the immense profusion of trees and bushes which has grown up in the intervening years makes it difficult to photograph anything identifiable at this distance.
Behind the trees on the left, where that singularly unattractive scrubland littered with the remains of old salt workings and old cars was in 1969, can be found Andersen's boat yard. There aren't many boats to be seen at the moment (August 2017) as we're at the height of the boat hire season and most of them are out cruising along Britain's waterways. The boats you can see on the other side of the canal, however, are part of the Andersen fleet.
A full description of the top picture can be found here.
To try to connect the two photos together, we can only refer you to our old friend St Michael's church tower, which can just be glimpsed amongst the vegetation above the canalside canopy at Andersen's.
One further thing ties the two photos together; on the left, just above the 'V' where the two paths diverge can be seen a gap in the wall.
We think this might just be where that blue brick pillar (thought to be part of a pipeline bridge over the canal at one time) stands in the earlier picture.
Here's a close up of that part of the wall, and you can see that there are certainly plenty of those industrial blue bricks still in evidence.

ANDERSEN BOATS WEBSITE

NOW & THEN: SEDDON'S BROOKS LANE WORKS 1969 and 2017

by Dave Roberts

We were very taken with the Middlewich Heritage Trust's new logo, illustrating as it does the 'Wych & Water' aspects of Middlewich's history, by showing a stylised representation of Seddon's Salt Works in Brooks Lane with an equally stylised canal boat  floating sedately by. In actual fact the boat appears to be floating sedately along Brooks Lane itself, but we'll have to put that down to artistic license. What's very striking about the logo is the colours used, which reflect those used by Seddon's Works right up until their closure in 1967.The large brine holding tanks which were a feature of all three works in Pepper Street, Wych House Lane and Brooks Lane were painted in red lead and signwritten with the words SEDDON'S SALT WORKS (or simply, when space was limited SEDDON'S) in white with black shading.

This encouraged us to  take another  look at our own photo of the Brooks Lane Works, taken on Kodachrome film in 1969 using the then popular Kodak Instamatic camera. The works themselves had closed two years earlier in 1967 but remained remarkably intact, demolition only beginning in earnest in the early 1970s. You can read a detailed description of this photo here. Take particular note of the feedback this photo generated.

Brooks Lane, 7th March 2017

...and this in turn, encouraged us to return to Brooks Lane to see what the scene looks like in 2017. It's still possible to tell that this was once an open pan salt works, as several sections of the original retaining wall along Brooks Lane remain, although the lane itself has been widened (this happened in the early 1970s as part of a deal with ERF Ltd who opened their Service Centre further up the road in 1971 and needed better access for deliveries and trucks travelling to and from the ERF repair shop on the site). Most of the site has now become home to Tarmac Readycrete and presents a rather dismal face to the world these days. The old salt works, while no oil painting, did have a sort of gloomy utilitarian grandeur to it, which the hotch-potch collection of concrete making apparatus and modern industrial buildings lacks. There are ambitious plans to transform the whole area surrounding Brooks Lane into a housing estate and marina development which will change things beyond recognition, if it ever comes to pass. It's worth remembering that the Sandbach-Middlewich-Northwich railway line is just a few yards away on the other side of these industrial buildings and the site suggested - 'suggested' being the operative word - for our new railway station is just out of shot to the left. If the new development does happen as planned, and the new station is indeed situated here, local residents will be ideally situated for travel to Manchester and Crewe. But isn't that a lot of 'ifs'?
Note: Murgatroyd's brine pumps, which are currently undergoing restoration are just at the top of the hill, behind the gym and tankwash buildings.

8th APRIL 2020