MIDDLEWICH TOWN CENTRE PUZZLE PICTURE

Here's one for all our Middlewich aficionados. The puzzle we're trying to work out is the date of this picture of Middlewich Town Centre. There are various clues and indicators to be taken into account.
First of all, notice that the weather vane is securely in place atop St Michael's Church Tower. This went missing for a few years and, we seem to recall, was refurbished and put back in place just before one of the original Folk & Boat Festivals, which puts the date after 1990.
Below the church the late and unlamented 'piazza' is still in place, awaiting replacement by the much superior 'Roman Amphitheatre' we know today.
In front of the piazza you can just make out the old bus shelter with a sign indicating that we're still in the Cheshire County Council era.
Why, incidentally, did they put those steps in on the right of this lacklustre structure when there's a perfectly good pavement running right alongside? We'll probably never know.
On the left the Vaults car-park is still in unrebuilt form and a blackboard proudly announces the presence of BIG SCREEN SKY TV, so we're also in the early years of  satellite TV in pubs. Nowadays all pubs showing SKY TV have massive banners outside proclaiming the existence of SKY on the premises and the BIG SCREEN bit is taken for granted.
Middlewich's tall and quite elegant lamp posts are still in place, albeit painted grey instead of municipal green and there's no sign yet of the horrendous 'glorified patio heaters' we have complained about in more recent years.
And what, we wonder, are those pipes doing running across the road?
On the right of the picture is a collection of buildings which merits closer inspection...

On the left our poor beleagured butchered butcher's shop has become home to a video shop called 'Titles', although one of the windows seems to have been broken.
The hideous green wooden panelling which so disfigured this formerly beautiful shop has not yet been introduced, giving us the possibly unique sight of a video shop with MEAT PURVEYORS on the front.
In 2013 the shop looks much smarter as the home of the Balti Spice Takeaway.
Next door, sporting a white logo rather than the current red one, is...er...the Natwest Bank, about which the least said the better...
And to its right is the never-to-be-forgotten Dillon's, now part of Tesco's dwindling Middlewich empire.
'See you Down Dillon's!' was the cry in those days.
The red and white sign to the right of the shop is indicating that Dillon's was, at the time, the home to Middlewich Post Office, now situated in Lewin Street.
This picture rather makes it look as if the Post Office was a separate establishment but it was, as people will well remember, actually at the rear of Dillon's.
We think this picture was taken sometime between 2000 and 2005, but we are, as ever, open to correction.
UPDATE (27th March): In fact, we've already been corrected. Bill Armsden says:
'The street lights are still the old type, so do we know when the street lamps were changed? 24 Self Video were at No 12 Hightown during 2001/2 and by that time 'Titles' had gone and Balti Spice were there. So, before 2000 is my guess because that was the year we moved back here and Baltic Spice were already trading. Asking Baltic Spice when they opened for business might help date this picture too.'
(See also Bill's comment, below)
So when did the Town Centre look like this?
Middlewich, it's over to you...

NOW & THEN - LOWER STREET and ST MICHAEL'S WAY

When we first published an old late-60s black & white view of the town centre, seen from the Town Bridge in this MD Entry, quite a few people were puzzled and 'unable to get their bearings' (largely, as pointed out by Paul Greenwood, because the church itself wasn't in the picture to act as a landmark).
So, as promised, here's that view again, together with a 2012 view taken from a similar vantage point.
We can see that, like so many areas of Middlewich, the churchyard has been taken over by trees, and there are many more of them now than there were in 1969. The Town Hall would have been behind that clump of trees.
The curve of Lower Street to the left is still evident, although the only part of that road remaining is a short stub now used as a bus layby.
St Michael's Way goes off to the right of this on a fairly straight alignment before curving off towards the last remaining segment of Pepper Street and then sweeping around to the left to join Nantwich Road close to the old Red Lion..
In between the two - i.e. the remains of Lower Street and  St Michael's Way, are traffic islands and a 'taxi rank' which, as we mentioned here, in another Now & Then feature,does not seem ever to have been used as such.
The black square in the top right hand corner of the modern view, by the way, is part of one of the traffic signals controlling traffic on the Town Bridge.
We had to wait a long time to get the modern view without it being full of cars and trucks and, ironically, in the end managed to take a picture with even fewer vehicles in it than the 1969 one.
 This, it hardly needs to be pointed out, is very far from typical.
You can click on the photos for a closer view.