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

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NOW & THEN: LAWRENCE AVENUE/GARDENS

We're back once again in Lawrence Avenue, that unadopted thoroughfare (or former thoroughfare)* which once connected Wheelock Street and Webbs lane, until the intervention of St Michael's Way split it into two dead ends called Lawrence Avenue East and Lawrence Avenue West.
Our Now and Then picture shows us once again that charming, almost rustic, scene  as the Avenue (then known as Lawrence Gardens) basked in the warm Edwardian sunshine, together with a shot taken in September this year which proves that, although places change over the years, they perhaps do not always change as much as we might think.
Our musings on this photo can be seen here.
In 2013 we can see that the doorway where the happy Edwardian family were standing all those years ago has been bricked up, the approximate edge of the former door being marked by the red and white No parking sign.

Something about the rather haphazard brickwork suggests that this was done not too long ago, probably in a bit of a hurry.
Quite possibly this was done as part of the conversion of the premises into a shop.
As late as 1937 this large building, on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Wheelock Street, which is now a kebab shop and the premises of Brooks & Bostock,appears to have had large bay windows at the front. Was it originally a large family home, with servants' quarters at the rear, to which the bricked up door was an entrance?
The basic outline of the rear of the building is still very much the same, with its sloping lean-to roof leading the eye to the rest of the north side of Lawrence Avenue which, again, looks remarkably unaltered, externally at least.
The first house in particular, now the home of a dental surgery, appears to have weathered the years remarkably well.
Here's a larger version of the 'now picture':

*actually, even before the coming of the Inner Relief Road, Lawrence Avenue had not been a thoroughfare for many years. There were bollards at the west end of the road preventing access to vehicles from Wheelock Street.

SEE ALSO NOW & THEN: LAWRENCE AVENUE 1969 and 2011

LAWRENCE GARDENS and LAWRENCE AVENUE

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

by David Roberts

Today we're trying to fathom the vexed question of Lawrence Gardens and Lawrence Avenue. As we've seen here, Lawrence Avenue in the present day is in two halves,split in half by St Michael's Way (or the Middlewich Inner Relief Road, to give it its original, more prosaic title) and is always referred to officially as 'Lawrence Avenue' East and West. Some of the older inhabitants of Middlewich, however, still refer to this former thoroughfare, which at one time formed a handy alternative route between Wheelock Street and Webb's Lane, as 'Lawrence Gardens',  the two names  being used  interchangeably.

 For some time now we've been trying to find out just when 'Lawrence Gardens' became 'Lawrence Avenue'. 

 It's one of those things which happen slowly and gradually in small towns, when an area changes, almost with anyone noticing, over the years. 

But when was it decided that 'The Gardens' should become 'The Avenue'?

Who decided it?

Obviously the Middlewich UDC must have had a hand in it (although the situation is complicated by the fact that the road is unadopted) because the signs indicating the name of the Avenue seem to be of pre-1974 vintage.

 The fact is, that nobody seems to know.

 Even an appeal to the ultimate authority, Allan Earl, was inconclusive so here we'll take a look at the evidence provided by old photographs and maps. 

We won't find out when the name was changed, but we can at least take a look at how Lawrence Avenue has altered during  a period of more than a hundred years.

Over half a century separates the photographs above and below.

 The top photograph depicts an almost semi-rural scene in  the Edwardian era.

Everyone's happy and eager to pose for the camera, with even the family's pet dog getting a look in.

 In the background more people have turned out to see what the photographer is up to and to get themselves immortalised on film in a record of a moment in time which we are privileged to be able to recall all these years later.

On the extreme left is the rear of the current Brooks and Bostock premises, which fronts onto Wheelock Street. A very much altered building which in former days had bay windows at the front, in common with a lot of the houses in the area.

Next in the row is the converted house which is now home to David Reeves & Co's dental surgery and the other houses of the same period which still flourish today and add a bit of charm to this end of town which has suffered a decline in recent years.

Behind the children in the right background are a profusion of trees which must be part of the gardens which gave the road its original name. It's impossible to tell from this picture, of course, what buildings lay on the other side of the road.

If you own the copyright on this photo, or know who does, please let us know.

Fifty or sixty or so years later all the semi-rural charm has disappeared and Lawrence Avenue is a very nondescript looking area indeed. At this time it could hardly justify the name 'Avenue' as there wasn't a tree in sight.
In this shot we're slightly further down the road and we can see housing dating from a later period on either side. The semi-detached house just above the Morris Minor, the large house opposite, and the white-washed house in the background were not long for this world as, in the early 70s, the Middlewich Inner Relief Road, or St Michael's Way, came along, slicing right through the middle of the road and creating the current Lawrence Avenue East and West.

In this small section of the Ordnance Survey map of Middlewich dated 1907-8 and updated to 1938, the road is clearly and uncompromisingly marked 'Lawrence Gardens' but there is no sign of the trees shown in our top photo - the road cuts straight through from Wheelock Street to Webbs Lane.
To the left, though, is a large area of what seem to be orchards (in the present day occupied mostly by sheltered housing) which are probably the last remnants of what used to be Lawrence Gardens.
For reference, here's that section of map again with today's St Michael's Way added (rather clumsily) in blue.

So the closest we can get to the answer to our question - when did Lawrence Gardens become Lawrence Avenue? is:

Sometime between 1938 and 1974.

As always we welcome comments and additional information.

Facebook Feedback

Geraldine Williams I suppose, by rights it should have been called 'Lawrences's Gardens as the house there was the home of C F Lawrence and the orchard was always know locally as 'Lawrence's Orchard'. And shouldn't an avenue, by definition, be lined with trees? just sayin'!

Dave Roberts I'd always assumed that Lawrence Gardens/Avenue was named after CFL himself, but the area (and the name) obviously pre-dates him and is named for his family. I wonder why the name 'Lawrence Gardens' wasn't officially retained?

Geraldine Williams I think you're probably right about it being a family name. I don't know CFL's dates*, but a relative of ours was prosecuted as a lad for scrumping apples from Lawrence's Orchard - and he was born in 1905! Incidentally, my husband's grandparents lived in teh house shown in the first photograph with the group with the pram outside...

I have childhood memories of Kitty Lawrence, who i think was CFL's widow, but must have been much younger than him when they married. I'm not sure whether or not she was a writer. Their house was accessed from a pathway down by that white bungalow on the left, but I don't know if it is still standing.

*April 15, 1873 – June 29, 1940 - Ed

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