LILYWHITE POSTCARDS OF MIDDLEWICH

by Malcolm Hough and Dave Roberts

A friend of mine, Maurice Weedall of King’s Crescent, recently brought me six post cards to look at, featuring scenes of Middlewich.
Some we have seen before, but two of them are new to me. 
What I find interesting is that five out of the six are from the well-known Lilywhite series and have the original copyright number on them. They appear to belong to the same set.
I was wondering if it might be possible to track down a full set of these cards? They are all top quality and enlarge well on the screen - Malcolm Hough

Editor's Note: Lilywhite Ltd of Brighouse were only one of many firms producing postcards of thousands of locations all over the world. Malcolm appears to be right in saying that these cards are part of a Middlewich series, as can be seen by the index numbers MDH 57/MDH 25 and so on on all but the last one, which seems to be from a different publisher. Internet searches bring up long lists of postcards from Lilywhite and other publishers, but little about the postcard manufacturers themselves. We'd be grateful for any information about this fascinating source of pictorial history. -Ed.

This postcard shows the Parish Church with the iron railings still in place*, and also showing railings over the river Croco (extreme left, abutting the Town Bridge parapet).
Maurice told me that in this photo, by the Church’s rear gate, one of the two gentlemen in waistcoats, is his grandfather (who died before 1944 when Maurice was born). He is probably the one pushing the trolley, or push chair. The child is Maurice’s elder brother Barry about 1940/41.
The graffiti 'artists' were also about in those days - see the town bridge wall.
Also visible in this photo are the corks on the overhead wires to stop birds flying into them, mainly the racing  pigeons which were, and still are, so popular in this and other parts of the north. Maurice thinks that the mounds in the Churchyard are freshly cut grass left to dry on a hot Summer day, possibly to supply horse feed with it being wartime. - Malcolm Hough

* which, obviously shows the photograph to have been taken  during the earliest days of the Second World War when, in common with similar railings from all over the country, they were removed to provide scrap metal for the war effort. In fact very little of the metal collected was ever used for the war effort and a lot of it, particularly in London, was quietly dumped at sea. The exercise was chiefly valuable as propaganda, making people think that they were making sacrifices to win victory. It's a pity the church's railings couldn't have been returned or replaced after the war. However, on a brighter note, Middlewich's beautifully ornate cemetery gates in Chester Road were spared and were recently restored to their former glory. (update (April 2019: Sadly, our beautiful cemetery gates were, almost unbelievably, wrecked once more by an out-of control car not long after this was written. At the time of writing - 26th April 2019 - they are yet to be repaired - Ed) To the right is Middlewich's long-vanished, and still much-missed, Victorian Town Hall -Ed.

This one is very well-known and crops up repeatedly in many a collection of Middlewich pictures. It was on sale in local newsagents right up until the early 1970s for those who had taken the novel step of holidaying in Middlewich and wanted to let the folks at home know of its glories. The picture itself appears to have been taken in the early to mid 1950s.
We're standing on the other side of the Town Hall shown in the previous picture, in The Bullring, and looking along the still very recognisable Wheelock Street, the main points of reference being the now beautifully restored White Bear Hotel on the right,and, in the middle distance, the distinctive facade of the Alhambra Cinema which, despite the vicissitudes of the years, still retains all that ornamental decoration and, almost miraculously, its name.
The building on the extreme right is now the site of the Vaults car park and the building visible between it and the White Bear is now home to two hairdressing establishments and the former home of the celebrated Sharon's Cafe.
The Vaults itself is set back from the road, and lurking between these two buildings waiting for the day, many years later, when it would emerge into the open to be the first building on that side of Wheelock Street.
Out of shot on the extreme right is the start of Pepper Street, meandering away from the town centre to join Webbs Lane and giving access to Henry Seddon's Pepper Street Salt Works along the way.
The buildings on the left have now disappeared to make way for what is now Tesco Express and the former Pineland Shop. - Dave Roberts

We have definitely seen this picture of King Street before, and it has featured in a previous Middlewich Diary entry, which you can see here. This is King Street, Middlewich, either during or just after the Second World War. The car looks to be of 1930s vintage but in those 'make do and mend' days may well have kept running throughout the war and beyond. The large tree, centre right, marks the spot where King Street curves to the right to cross over the railway line and then start its climb up Ravenscroft Hill. The huge poles along the left hand side of the street are part of the somewhat Heath-Robinson style electricity supply to King Street, in which the cables were strung along the street like telephone cables. The lower part of King Street even used to have wooden electricity poles which had street lights screwed to them, Part of this now antiquated system still survives.
We can date this photo as being from the 1940s by the two houses on the right, which were built by my Grandmother and my Mother's cousin Harry  in the late thirties and were the only houses on that side of this stretch of the road until building began again after the war. -Dave Roberts

Another rather familiar postcard view, this time pure 1920s suburbia as Nantwich Road makes its genteel way down to the aqueduct. The entrance to Mill Lane is to the right. Notice the elaborate telegraph pole - just one of millions which used to line nearly every road and railway line at one time - and the small road sign; all that was necessary to control traffic in the days before the world went motor-car crazy. We think this picture dates from the 1940s. Notice how spick and span everything seems. - Dave Roberts

I was looking at this postcard of Chester Road and noticed that  the name of the landlord on the Golden Lion pub sign is  F. A. Egerton. According to Middlewich Hospitality, the new book by Ken Kingston,  he (Frank Egerton) was the landlord from 1929 to 1944. So as with the St Michael's photo, this one was probably taken in  the early  years of the  war, which  may explain why all the roads are quiet. It would be nice to find a full set of these postcards.

The shop with the Gold Flake sign in the window was also a cafe in those days. I remember it being a shop in the 60’s but not a cafe. - Malcolm Hough

This photo is the 'odd one out' among Maurice's  postcards, as it is not  part of the Lilywhite Series. It does, though, appear to be one of a set of Middlewich cards as it bears the index number MDW4. It's titled 'King Street Schools' which dates it as pre-1920s when the 'deviation' from the original line of the road was developed and this section of King Street became 'New King Street'. The aerial view of the two roads below, which is taken from Google Earth, shows how New King Street aligns perfectly with the top part of King Street (as shown in the postcard above).Presumably the 'New' prefix was given to what is actually the old section of road so that there would not need to be a change of name as the new alignment met the old. Notice the lovely old gas lamps along the street. This scene has not altered very much over the years, although the building on the right, which was St Mary's Primary School, is now St Mary's Parish Hall. - Dave Roberts

The yellow line follows the route of New King Street from St Mary's Church to the foot of the railway bridge to show how it aligns with the 'top' section of King Street. Before the coming of the railway the road would have continued along the side of Harbutt's field and, probably, made its way along the riverbank before turning to bridge the river and resume its northerly course towards Northwich and Warrington. The green cross marks the position of St Mary's Church and the former school, and the red cross is the site of the houses in the 'King Street' postcard above

 

With many thanks to Malcolm Hough and Maurice Weedall.

First published 1st May 2015.
Up-dated and re-published 26th April 2019

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

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WHISTON'S GARAGE EARLY 1970s

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

This photograph from Paul's collection was taken, as far as we can ascertain, around 1970, or perhaps just a little later, just before the existing three way junction between Wheelock Street, Chester Road and Nantwich Road disappeared to make way for the northern end of St Michael's Way which now sweeps away in a broad curve through the site of the buildings on the left,  runs  through what were once gardens and orchards and  past the town centre, to join up with Kinderton Street at the Town Bridge.
By this time Whiston's Garage had lost its memorable 'house-style', as seen here and taken on a corporate look, courtesy of the Ford Motor Co (still a dominating force in the district courtesy of  Fords of Winsford, who even sponsor the local weather forecast on Granada TV)*.
The brick wall on the left belongs to the Chester Road Methodist Church, which still exists as 'Church House' and houses a computer and stationery business standing on the corner of Chester Road and St Michael's Way.
Middle right is one of those enduring symbols of 'old' Middlewich, a single decker Crosville Bus. Out of shot to the left of it is the former Whiston's radio department, by that time serving as a car showroom as part of the Ford franchise. This building can be seen in the background of this picture,
On the right can be seen part of the Victorian Red Lion pub (now an apartment block called 'Lion House') and to its left is the present day Acorn Surgery, a breakaway enterprise from Oaklands, the town's main doctors' surgery in St Ann's Walk. In 2014 preparations were being made for the practice to move from here to Lex House, adjacent to Middlewich Town Wharf. Ironically, this was the base for Middlewich's Doctors from 1967, after the Wheelock Street surgery down the road from here closed until the early 2000s when Oaklands in St Ann's Walk opened.
This building had a former life in the 1950s, in very much the same line of business, as the Cheshire County Council Clinic where babies were taken to be measured and weighed and issued with National Dried Milk and orange juice.
At that time the building, in common with all such NHS establishments of the period, reeked of a mixture of cigarette smoke, nappies and Dettol.

* Diane Russell (see comments below) tells us that the 'Ford' in Fords of Winsford is nothing to do with the Ford Motor Co as seen on Whiston's old signage. A look at the FOW site does indeed reveal that there doesn't seem to be any connection. They could have chosen a less confusing name, but they're obviously doing well if they can afford to sponsor Granada's weather forecasts. Many thanks to Diane for the info - Ed.

STANTHORNE MILL POOL

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

Here's another Middlewich postcard which is new to us and supplied by Mike Jennings. As you can see, it's captioned 'Stanthorne Mill Pool', but appears to show a section of the River Wheelock with, on the right hand side, what might be a mill race - i.e. a stream of water taken from the river and carried off in a narrow channel to power a watermill. - in this case Stanthorne Mill.

The presence of Stanthorne Mill might also explain the existence of the weir immediately adjacent to the bridge which carries the footpath from Nantwich Road to Stanthorne. Was that there, partly at least, to increase the flow of the River Wheelock towards the Mill? The fact that the mill no longer functions as such could explain why the weir itself has been allowed to go to rack and ruin over a long period of time.

Or is this a more credible explanation of Mike's postcard? 

Is Mike's picture (photo 1) an earlier version of the scene shown in Jack Stanier's slide from the 1970s (photo 2)? The weir is indicated by a red arrow in each picture. Is that Mill Lane snaking down from top right to top centre, before the houses, such as 'Three Willows', between Nantwich Road and the river were built? Certainly the bridge over the weir is quite distinctive and its curved abutments (as seen in photo 3) might be discernible in both photos. This would mean that 'Stanthorne Mill Pool' was not actually at Stanthorne at all and that the weir, as we've suggested, was there to ensure a good and strong flow of water to the mill, several hundred yards away.

It is, of course, very difficult to make out the actual course of the River Wheelock in any photos taken since the first world war because of the profusion of trees along its banks.

Photo number 4 dates back to the 1960s when the area was not quite so overgrown and shows the 'mill pool' looking from the weir towards the Shropshire Union Canal Middlewich Branch which runs on its embankment behind the trees at the top of the picture.

(originally published 10th April 2013, revised 15th April 2013)

UPDATE (16th April):

Edward O'Hare writes: 

Hi Dave, my Mum and Dad have just confirmed your alternative theory as they both remember the small stream by the side of the river.

Also, the tree that is seen on the right hand river bank eventually grew right over the river, so that you could cross over from one side to the other without getting wet - most of the time!

(Edward is the son of Mike and Rita O'Hare, who live in Nantwich Road, close to the area shown in these photos. Many thanks to him and to Mike and Rita for confirming this for us - Ed)

AQUEDUCT APPROACH 1920s

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

Here's an idyllic and almost rural scene on the outskirts of Middlewich which is still very recognisable today. We think, from the look of the motor car and the clothes worn by the two girls in the foreground, that this view of Nantwich Road as it dips steeply to run under the Middlewich Branch canal via 'The Aqueduct' (actually, as we've seen, one of three such structures in the town, one of them only a few yards away)that this picture dates back to the early 1920s
The car in the photo is coasting serenely down the slope, confident that the likelihood of much traffic coming the other way is remote, while the two little girls pass the time away chatting happily to each other as they linger halfway down the brick staircase which runs from road level up the bank to join the canal towpath.
Quite why that staircase is there is a little uncertain.
It's built from heavy-duty  blue engineering brick and  appears to have been put there at the same time as the aqueduct, so it's possible it's there to give maintenance workers access to the canal and the top of the aqueduct.
From time to time concerned people send reports into British Waterways about the fact that the aqueduct has 'started to leak'.
The truth is that, like most such canal structures, it always did leak, and quite possibly always will do.
The houses at the top of the picture would have been quite new at the time the photograph was taken.

On the 26th May 2011 the Middlewich Diary section of the Salt Town Site was taking the first of many looks at Kinderton Street, and in particular the Talbot Hotel.

A MIDDLEWICH DIARY - 26th MAY 2011

WHISTON'S GARAGE LATE 1960s

What strikes me as I look through this collection  of old images of Middlewich is not how many things have
changed, but how many things have stayed the same or, at any rate, are still recognisable. Not so with this shot from the late 60s (though we may be creeping into the very early 70s here). Nothing seen here exists today. It's another slide taken by Jack Stanier, featured courtesy of Middlewich Heritage Society and showing Whiston's Garage at the bottom of Nantwich Road. Out of shot to the right was the Red Lion (now an apartment block called 'Lion House') and on the left is Yeowart's grocery shop which we had a tiny glimpse of in a previous shot of the Red Lion. Out of site behind Yeowart's is Chester Road Methodist Chapel (officially the Chester Road United Methodist Free Chapel) This was built in 1868 and is still in existence today as a computer and stationery supply business. A pity - I always thought it would make a nice little theatre/music venue. But I'm glad it is, at least, still there. I attended one of the last  services at the chapel, just before it closed in the 1990s (In fact, it may have been the last service - does anyone know the date?) to be replaced, like the other Methodist Chapels in the town, by a new Church in Booth Lane in the year 2000. I did this just so that I could say I'd been there. I had a bad cough at the time and a kind lady supplied me with cough sweets throughout the proceedings). If you look at this view today you will see  the old church, acres of dual carriageway with new housing in the background, some attractive flower beds and that highly dodgy junction between St Michael's Way and Nantwich Road. Whiston's was replaced by a new garage on what is now the Lidl supermarket site. As always, comments and corrections are very welcome.