MUDC RATE DEMAND 1971

by Dave Roberts
My mother, fortunately for us, was from a generation which never threw anything away. This is why we're able to bring you another piece of Middlewich ephemera from forty years ago in the form of this Middlewich UDC rate demand for our modest family home in King Street.
The number 33 seems to stand out from the rest of the address, and there's a good reason for this; the ADREMA (See below) plate for our address had been altered because of the re-numbering of houses in King Street a few years earlier.
No. 27 became no. 33 and we received a letter threatening all kinds of retribution if we didn't change the number on the front of the house. In fact I'm not so sure that the death penalty wasn't still in force for failure to change your house number when told to do so.
The interest, to me, lies in the technology used to produce this most unwelcome of bills and its receipt which is a far cry from the slick computerised systems we have today.
Notice that the total payable for the year is £77.08 for a three bedroomed semi (or 'domestic hereditament' if you will). Oddly, this still sounds like a lot of money, considering that we are talking about the early 70s. The other amount, of £3.28 for the half year, was nothing to do with the council but was a charge for water rates collected by the council on behalf of the Mid - Cheshire Water Board.
The receipt is signed by Collecting Officer 'D. Roberts'. This is no coincidence, but proof that I was, at least, in gainful employment forty years ago at the age of 19. The square space on the receipt was where stamps were stuck on and signed over for certain transactions. Stamp duty on these receipts was abolished during my time at the council.
But it's the rate demand itself, and the way it was produced, which brings back memories and is so evocative of long-vanished ways of working in the pre-computer age.
The blank rate demands were produced for us by the clerk's department on a photocopier, a different coloured paper being used for each year to save confusion (and prevent  anyone paying the same bill twice).
Many of the Council's documents, such as minutes, internal memos etc, were produced on stencil machines
(usually made by Gestetner), using a complicated process involving typing on a special sheet (the ribbon selector on an office typewriter had three settings: black, red and stencil (which, in fact, kept the ribbon out of the way and enabled typing direct onto the stencil sheets).
But if I remember rightly these rate demands were too complicated to be run off on Gestetners (although it could be done) so a rather inefficient photocopying machine was used (even allowing for forty years of deterioration, you can tell that the print quality was only just adequate).
Then came the fun part. The addressing of the rate demands was done on our ADREMA machine, made by a German company (ADdREssenMAchine, or something of the kind) and which had been pioneered during the war by the Germans for the registration of prisoners of war.
Basically the system was that every rateable property in the town had its own ADREMA plate - an aluminium plate with the name and address pressed onto it, forming a collection of printing plates which were then stacked up on a machine with a massive operating handle which you brought down with a huge crash to print the rate demands. Obviously, when ownership of a property changed we had to have the details on the plate altered which involved sending the plate off to the factory to be flattened and re-pressed with the new details. This, of course, could be highly frustrating if people moved into a house and only stayed a short time, necessitating the re-pressing of the relevant plate time and time again.
It must be appreciated, though, that this system could only print the addresses. The actual figures on the demands were hand-written by Rating Officer Bertie Maddock and were actually copies of  entries in the Rating Ledger which was precisely that - a huge book with details of every rateable property in Middlewich hand-written into it. This had to be balanced each year, with the amount received exactly matching the amount due.
This document was one of the first batch of rate demands the MUDC issued in decimal currency. The new system had been introduced in February and all the council staff underwent training at Crewe College over a period of six weeks so that we would be conversant with pounds and pence (or pee as people still annoyingly insist on calling them) when they replaced pounds, shillings and pence. We were even given 'homework'.

The idea was that we would be able to help the elderly who, it was thought, would end up hopelessly confused. In the event no one, however elderly, had any problems at all.
Incidentally, on 'D-Day' (the 15th February 1971) rating officer Bertie Maddock told me that he would serve our first 'decimal customer' but, in the event, he was out of the office when the historic moment came, and the honour fell to me.
Middlewich UDC's method of issuing rate demands was a clumsy and unwieldy system, made instantly redundant just a few years later by computerisation, but twice a year our little rates office more closely resembled a small factory and echoed to the bang and crash of the ADREMA machine. I'm wondering if my current problems with my right arm can be traced back to this time, and if it's too late to sue the council...
We'll be hearing more about life in the council offices in due course.

Facebook feedback:

Geraldine Williams I remember those scary Rate Demands - and running the gauntlet of Bertie Maddock's glare if you were a day or two late in paying. He seemed to mellow after he married Freda! We had a Gestetner in school and spent many an hour cranking the handle on the side and thought we were quite advanced, but oh the joy of using the electric model in the Presbytery 

Dave Roberts Well - I suppose I can say this now - you should have tried working with him...

Jonathan Williams The Town Council were still using a Gestetner machine when I started in 1985. Took me days to complete a set of minutes. Covered head to toe with black ink and correcting fluid I was!!

Dave Roberts  I know. I had one in my garage when I was at Mottram Close,passed on by Frank Smith of the Heritage Society - the idea was that the Society's Newsletter would be produced on the thing. Not a hope. The machine and all its ancillary equipment took up all the space where the family car should have been and was always subject to the law of diminishing returns - hours and hours producing one page on a stencil; seconds for it to be destroyed by a malicious and malevolent Gestetner machine.
 ‎...and don't get me started on the convoluted workings of the Kalamazoo wages system. I can only recall doing the dustbinbmen's wages once (I don't think they'd let me do it a second time) and the nightmare haunts me still. Got away with it, though...

First published 12th August 2011
Re-formatted and re-published 30th May 2020

Corrected and re-published 15th February 2021 (the 50th anniversary of 'Decimal Day')

FRED DODD'S GENTS OUTFITTERS SHOP LEWIN STREET, EARLY 1970s

We believe this image to be out of copyright. If you own the copyright, or know who does, please let us know

by Dave Roberts

Sometimes the most ordinary and mundane subjects are the most evocative, as in this picture from the Paul Hough collection taken in the early 1970s.
It shows the long-vanished block of shops and houses which once stood in Lewin Street opposite Middlewich D.I.Y and the entrance to Wych House Lane.
The fact that the picture is in black and white gives something of a false impression and, if it were not for the brand new Middlewich Library on the right, you might almost take this for a picture from the 50s or even earlier. The other giveaway, of course, is the UHF TV aerial on the first cottage's chimney, which dates the photo to no earlier than 1967.

What is it about that F.DODD sign which induces so much nostalgia?

It's the simplest of shop signs, yet very typical, somehow, of Middlewich. Simple, unpretentious and unassuming.  In later years the shop became Yearsleys, who simply adapted the same sign to show their name.

The house at the other end of the block also appears to have been a shop at one time, but I have no memory of it ever having been used as such.
You'll note that the County Council originally, and very optimistically, placed the plastic letters saying MIDDLEWICH LIBRARY at a much lower level than they are now, making them an easy target for vandals. The inevitable happened, and that's why the letters are now very high up on the wall, underneath the eaves.

Our best guess for the actual year this photo was taken is 1971, as that was the year the new library was completed, replacing the one in the old Town Hall.
(UPDATE: Correspondence from Daniel Preston (see Facebook feedback, below) suggests that 1971 is a bit early. Given that the lettering on the library was only in that lower position for a very short time, we've revised the year to 1972).
 Middlewich's new library was a surprisingly early addition to the Lewin Street scene, pre-dating the demolition of the C of E school and Wesleyan Chapel by a few years

Out of shot to the left is The Crown public House (now The Narrowboat), and the whole block of shops and houses seen here has been demolished to make way for a housing development built around a central 'courtyard' (car park) called Longcross Court.

'Longcross', apparently relates to a type of halfpenny coin dating back to the reign of Richard III. I wonder if there is any connection with 'Half Penny Hill' which is just a short distance away?

UPDATE (January 5th 2018)

Photo: Paul Hough

Here, from the Paul Hough Collection, is a later view showing that the terraced houses were demolished before Dodd's/Yearsley's shop.You may just be able to make out the 'Yearsley' version of the old F Dodd sign over the door. In fact the terraced houses had been demolished so long before the shop  that there was time for the area to be grassed over before the entire plot was cleared and  space made for the future Longcross Court. The shop, however, does not look long for this world, and must have disappeared not too long after this photo was taken. We have ascertained elsewhere that The Narrowboat (after its years as The Danes and The Crown) was established in 1992, so this photo can be dated as no earlier than that year. Was it, though, as late as 2000? We think the year shown on this photo is probably the year it was archived rather than the year it was taken.
Note, on the far left, part of the pharmacy, probably in the days when it was owned by Mr Mistry and before the Post Office branch moved in. We would,as always, appreciate any help in dating this photo more precisely.

Here's the somewhat uninspiring roadside elevation of Longcross Court, which replaced the shop and houses. The library can just be seen on the extreme right. Although this modern development somehow lacks the charm of what was there in former days, it did manage to get Middlewich into the news in May 2015 after an unfortunate error by an ambulance crew.

YAHOO NEWS UK 11th MAY 2015

Facebook feedback:


Robert Sheckleston: The Harvey Nicks of Middlewich. My Mum used to get my school uniform from Fred Dodd's.


Michael Tully: Love the 'Harvey Nicks', Rob. I got my first penny round collar there! Not sure anyone should ever share that...


Daniel Preston: In November 1971 I returned from a stint in the Far East to find Lower Street demolished and a new by-pass (St Michael's Way) carving its way through Middlewich.
The coin of the realm had been replaced by pence and an school friend, Peter Britland, was working on the building site for the new library. 
He said he hadn't seen me around for a while. I told him where I'd been.
He said he thought my neck was a bit red.
Just some of the things I recall from November 1971.
If my recollections about the building of the new library are correct, then this photo must have been taken some time after that date.


Dave Roberts: Thanks, Daniel. That would seem to push the date of this picture back to sometime during 1972.


Geraldine Williams: I'm pretty certain that all our menfolk hired their wedding gear from Fred Dodd's for our wedding in 1961.

First published 4th January 2012
Revised, amended and re-published 5th January 2018

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TALBOT HOTEL 1971

by Dave Roberts

Here's a 1971 Kodachrome slide of a building which seems to have a lot of happy memories for many people.

Our previous attempt to show you what the pub really looked like didn't quite work, as the slide in question was of dubious quality.

There are a lot of photographs of this popular Robinson's pub in existence but, as far as we know, very few in colour.

 This has led many people to believe that the pub was painted white for most of its life but, as can be seen here it was, at least in its last few years, a pleasing shade of lime green.


This particular photo was taken from the corner of the Seabank car park and the old GPO telephone box which once stood there is just creeping into shot on the right. Now even the chrome and glass BT box which replaced it has gone, a victim of the spread of the mobile phone.

Note the yellow painted gate on the right where in 1959 Twinky, the Roberts household cat, made a bid for freedom on his way home from the vets after an operation. He stayed in the little passageway behind that gate spitting defiance for over two hours.

The Talbot is also mentioned in this posting, where you can see how the pub fitted into the Kinderton street scene. 

There's a lot of Facebook Feedback attached, so don't forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page. 

And the pub also made a slightly unexpected appearance when we photographed the town's war memorial after its re-dedication in November 1972...

We can now see the pub's position in relation to the churchyard which, in those days, had far fewer trees. In fact you can see one of the current trees in its early years between the camera and the pub. Bear in mind, though, that the war memorial was in a slightly different place from the one it currently occupies.

Facebook Feedback

Michael Tully Walked past it on the way to St Mary's Junior School every day.

Carole Hughes Why did it get knocked down? It looks OK. Shame, half of Middlewich went.

Dave Roberts I think it was just in the wrong place when it came to widening the road. If it hhad been a bit further down the hill it might have been spared.

Carole Hughes Sad they had to knock down so many buildings just to widen a road and put a dual carriageway in.

Dave Roberts We were trying to decide earlier this year if the Kinderton Street scheme really was a  'widening' scheme at all.
Some of the road was widened, but not by an awful lot. 
Most of the space where the buildings were is now taken up by a wide footpath and landscaping.
Some of the property further up the road (Costello's, Whittaker's etc) was in a very sorry state when it finally got demolished.
But was it allowed to get into such a state because the owners knew it was going to be knocked down?

First published 4th December 2011
Re-formatted and re-published 4th December 2017

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MIDDLEWICH TOWN CENTRE FROM KING STREET c1971

 by Dave Roberts

This is a bit of a mystery photo. It shows part of the view from the garden at no 33 King Street in the early 1970s. The slide itself is marked 'Town Centre from King Street c1969' but the condition of what remains of the Pepper Street salt works would seem to suggest that it is slightly later than that. The chimney on the right, part of which has crept into the shot, has whitewashed brickwork at the bottom of it, a sure sign that the salt pan and associated roofing which were formerly in front of it have gone. And the gas-holders which once stood between us and the canal and River Croco have also disappeared. 
For these reasons, we've revised the date to 'c1971', which is the year that the chimneys themselves were felled.
The slides in this collection are all marked with a brief description and date which is something of a small mercy all these years later as we can, at least, give a rough estimate of the date each was taken - the year, if not the month in most cases. The drab colour, by the way, is largely due to the fact that we used Agfachrome for this particular slide - always a second choice after Kodachrome, but we had to use whatever slide film local chemists felt like stocking at the time.
Middlewich Town Hall is on the extreme left and the  white painted buildings, centre right, are the Vaults in Wheelock Street, seen from the rear.

First published 10th November 2011
Revised and re-published 10th November 2017

LOWER STREET and HIGHTOWN circa 1971

If you own the copyright on this image, please let us know

Following the demolition of Vernon Coopers and other property in Lower Street at the beginning of the 1970s it was possible to take this photo in the short period before work on demolishing Hightown itself  began.
Although, as we can see, the removal of the buildings in  Lower Street had begun in earnest, Dewhurst's butcher's shop and its associated living accomodation were yet to go, and were just to the right of the photographer, as can be seen in this photograph looking in the opposite direction. The metal sign in the right foreground appears in both pictures.
On the extreme right is our poor old butchered butcher's shop and dominating the picture and hiding the parish church from view is the Town Hall and the cluster of buildings around it.
The Town Hall itself was a very large building and was even larger (or should that be longer?) until the 1930s when, as explained here, part of it was demolished to make way for a widened Lower Street when the new Town Bridge was built.
The war memorial is still in its original position behind the end wall of the chemist's shop and it's strange to realise that until the 'piazza' replaced these buildings in the 70s the crowd at the annual Remembrance Day service were obliged to stand on the public thoroughfare.
The square building to the rear of that chemist's shop is intriguing. It's impossible to make out the wording on the sign board, but I seem to recall it was something like 'Winsford Industrial Co-operative Wholesale Society Optical Dept', which seems to indicate that the shop above was also part of the Co-op at this time. (although it may have moved across the road to that part of the 'Co-operative Superstore' building later occupied by Pineland by this date).
The two-level construction of this building is quite interesting in itself, and very reminiscent of one of the late Brian Curzon's 'stack pubs' as explained here.

C of E INFANTS SCHOOL and GIBBINS SHOP circa 1971

Here's Jack Stanier's picture of a Lewin Street building which must by now be familiar to all Middlewich Diary readers, whether or not they remember it when it was still in existence. The C of E Infants' School stood where the Salinae Centre now stands. To the right of this huge building can be seen the distinctive 'four pronged' tower of the Wesleyan Methodist  chapel, with the Square One hardware shop between the two.
Also of interest is the tobacconist and newsagent shop on the left, which stood, and still stands, on the curve in the road where Leadsmithy Street gives way to Lewin Street. During my lifetime it was run by Les Gibbins* who, I always thought, was a dead ringer for Professor Eric Laithwaite, inventor of the linear induction motor.
The shop had previously been known as Challinor's and afterwards became Tam's.
The shop always looks very vulnerable, somehow, and ripe for demolition as part of some road-widening scheme, but it has survived to date. It was, in the 1990s, the home to J&M Print, but has been empty for years.
UPDATE: In 2013 this shop was extensively re-modelled in preparation for its new role as premises for
Forshaw's Funeral Services, the business relocating from its shop next to Cynthia's Cake Shop in Wheelock Street in Summer 2014..
* or maybe not. See feedback below from Daniel Preston. Does anyone know when Les Gibbin's took the shop over? -ed

SEE ALSO: C of E INFANTS SCHOOL 1975

Facebook Feedback:

Daniel Preston In this posting the shop is recalled as 'Gibbins'*, however, in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties it was Challinor's Newsagents and Tobacconists. The shop between the school and the Wesleyan Church, well, I can't remember what that was at the time. I think that Joyce's Toffee Shop was further along the road, but then again it may have been that shop. We used to go there after school for farthing chews, which were then two for a farthing or four for a penny as the farthing had just gone out of circulation.

* The above description has been amended since Daniel made his comment - Ed

Dave Roberts Does anyone else remember this shop as Challinor's? I always think of it as 'Gibbins'' but Les might have been relatively late on the scene. And the name Challinor does ring a bell (but that might be because it was my Auntie Mary's maiden name. Can anyone help us out?

Margaret Williams It was Challinor's before Les Gibbins had it. I used to pass it every day on my way to school. Geraldine Williams will, no doubt, confirm this for you.

Geraldine Williams Yep! I'm not sure whether Challinor's wasn't once divided into two shops - the right hand side one being run as a haberdashery by some old lady. I've mentioned before on the Diary about a couple of us girls being sent down there by Miss Barry, the head teacher, to buy embroidery silks for the needlework class at St Mary's (then in King Street - Ed) and I don't think it was one of the shops to the right of the school.

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BUILDINGS ON WHEELOCK STREET 1971

When we included in this posting, a photograph of the last chimney at Seddon's Pepper Street Works falling to the ground in 1971, Geraldine Williams noticed the group of buildings blurrily enlarged above in the distant background. What puzzled her was that the White Bear Hotel, the half-timbered end of which can be seen to the right of the cluster of white buildings, looks for all the world as if it is on the far side of Wheelock Street, an illusion brought about by the close proximity of the pub's own outbuildings to the right of it.
Geraldine's query led to another of our bouts of detective work, comparing photos of the buildings in question from different angles, to reach the conclusion we have.
This information was included in the original posting, but we now think it deserves a posting all to itself.
So here goes:
Geraldine Williams Can you identify the white buildings - particularly the timber framed one - for us, please?

It's a little complicated and difficult to explain but in the enlarged section of the picture shown above, the large building on the extreme left is the Dewhurst The Butchers building in Pepper Street, together with the other large building to its rear shown here. The tall buildings to the right of that are actually shops on the opposite side of Wheelock Street.  Below them, but impossible to make out on this blurry enlargement, is the Vaults pub, which was, and is, a low building with a small shallow roof at the 'street' end only. The white buildings to the right of the pub are the two shops, now both hairdressers, which we tracked down as part of our 'Sharon's Cafe' investigation.
To complicate matters, the flat serving the Vaults is situated above these shops and there is an entrance to it leading off Wheelock Street. 
To the right of the two shops the archway giving access to the White Bear's 
car park can just be seen, and the distinctive black and white half-timbered building, centre right, is the White Bear itself.
Finally, to the right of The White Bear are the pub's outbuildings,  known to some as 'Lady Anne's Court'.
The relative positions of the Vaults, the two shops and the White Bear can be seen in the photo below

This, of course, is just my interpretation of what can be seen here. As always I'm open to corrections and additional information - ed.


Geraldine Williams Thank you. It makes perfect sense now. I was thrown by the Dewhurst the Butchers building still standing. I thought the half-timbered building could only be The White Bear but it looked as though it was on the opposite side of Wheelock Street!


Geraldine Williams This is really impressive Dave. All it's short of is a 'You are here' arrow!! And it's good to see that 'Sharon's Cafe' is now immortalised forever......

SEABANK SEEN FROM TOWN WHARF, SUMMER 1971

Another glimpse of Seabank, this time from the Town Wharf itself and showing the 
long-vanished cottages on the left-hand side. In the foreground are the cabin and tiller of a British Waterways maintenance boat. If you look immediately to the right of the cabin you can see a section of blue engineering bricks on  the retaining wall between the canal and the River Croco This is the last remains of the footbridge from Seabank to the Town Wharf. The greenish looking building at the top of Seabank is now part of the Kinderton Hotel and hidden from view behind the larger part of what is now the hotel, is the Boar's Head Hotel.
We have to stress that when we talk about Seabank being 'the old road from Kinderton to Middlewich', we are talking about a very long time ago indeed; a time when Kinderton and Middlewich were two separate townships. This would be long before the canal was built in 1776.

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