NOW & THEN: TANNERY ALLEY/SOUTHWAY

 

Tannery Cottages as they were in the late 50s/early 60s. Although we refer to old photos of this public footpath as depicting 'Tannery Alley' in fact the name was changed to 'Southway' a very long time ago. Certainly those of us born in the early 1950s can't remember it being called anything else. What the name 'Southway' is supposed to mean is anyone's guess. It's one of those exquisitely meaningless names which local councils love. You can find out more about the area in this Diary entry, written during the 'Jack's' era: 

SOUTHWAY

Southway as it was in January 2024,  and the huge bulk of the Home Bargains store dominates the scene as it has done since the early 1980s. This building, which started life as a Gateway/Somerfields supermarket and later became Tesco and then the short-lived Jack's, looks relatively unaltered from the way it was in the early 1980s, but was in fact comprehensively rebuilt before Home Bargains moved in. The earlier semi-rural feel of Southway has largely disappeared. On the other side of the wall on the left-hand side, great changes have taken place; The much lamented Barclay House and the other prestigious homes in the area have all disappeared to be replaced by new housing, still at the time of writing under construction. Even further to the left, in Darlington Street, the hotch-potch of old industrial buildings, garages and flats which once formed one side of the street, have been replaced by Roman Court a retirement development built by McCarthy & Stone.

WASHINGTON'S TANNERY, SUTTON LANE

 

Photo: Frank Smith/Bill Eaton

by David Roberts,

This is a companion photo to this one, almost certainly taken on the same grey, cold, winter day. This time we're facing in the opposite direction, looking towards the bridge carrying Sutton Lane over the Shropshire Union's Middlewich Branch which wends its way through ten miles of  pleasant Cheshire countryside to Barbridge Junction where it joins the main line of the Shropshire Union.

The Wardle Canal is behind us.

But thoughts of pleasant Cheshire countryside are far from anyone's thoughts as a group of men watch motor boats and buttys attempting to negotiate the thick ice in the canal in what must have been bitterly cold weather.

It isn't clear whether they are canal employees or just bystanders. The dog, though, appears to have lost interest and decided to go for a wander.

The buildings immediately to the left of the bridge are of interest. Like the earlier photo of Wardle Lock, this photo originated with Frank Smith. His description of this one is very short and to the point:

'Shropshire Union Canal, Middlewich. Looking West.

Sutton Wharf. The buildings in the background, to the left of the bridge were originally Washington's Tannery'.

The word 'formerly' is a little ambiguous. It's not clear from Frank's text  whether the buildings were still in use as a tannery at the time of the photo.

Sutton Wharf will have been to the left of the boats in the photo.

Many people will remember these buildings as Sutton Lane Engineering. They were certainly in use as such from the 1960s until the mid-1990s, in latter days erecting a long, low, metal industrial building in the place where the wharf once was.

This, together with the original tannery buildings, was swept away in 1996 when a start was made on building Water's Edge Mews on the site. The last of the houses on the site were built in 2002/3.

Road sign at the junction of Sutton Lane and Water's Edge Mews

Water's Edge Mews, January 2022

The area's industrial past is commemorated in the name of the two cottages which stand at the junction of Sutton Lane and Water's Edge Mews.

Looking rather in need of a little TLC, Tannery Cottages in January 2022
Water's Edge Mews can be seen to the left
Inset: The ornate nameplate in the centre of the two cottages.

 

A general view of the area from Sutton Lane Bridge in January 2022, with Wardle Lock and its famous cottage centre/centre right

 

Diary entry first published 4th January 2022