MANOR LODGE EARLY 20th CENTURY

Here's Manor Lodge when it was just that -  the lodge at the start of the carriage drive which led from Nantwich Road to the Manor about half a mile away and shown here in a postcard from the 'Perfection' series we estimate to be getting on for a hundred years old.
A 'lodge' in this context is usually described as a small house or cottage at the gates of, or in the grounds of, a large house. It may be occupied by someone specially employed as a gatekeeper or, perhaps, someone who combined that function with the job of gardener or estate manager.
At the time the photograph was taken the lodge really did look as though it was a part of the Manor estate and one can easily imagine being stopped by someone and asked what one's business was at the Manor.
On either side of the impressive gate are well built stone walls which add to the feeling of solidity. Approaching the Manor from this direction in those days must have been quite intimidating.
Note what looks like a lawned area to the right of the gate marked out with white posts. Presumably this was some form of early traffic control measure preventing carriages from making too hasty a descent from the driveway down onto Nantwich Road.
And right in front of the lodge's front door is that stone gatepost, minding its own business and little suspecting that a hundred years later, having had its top portion, complete with ball, resurrected after years of lying  in the undergrowth only a short time before, it would be knocked flat  by a speeding motor-car.
Assuming that the lodge was built at the same time as the Manor would make it an early 19th Century building dating back to around 1830 (some accounts date it even earlier at 1800).
In this photo it looks very much as if the building is faced in Ashlar Stone, as was the Manor itself (although it, i.e. the Manor, was originally of plain brick construction without stone facing), but its walls have been rendered and painted white for as long as most people can remember.
We'll be looking at Middlewich Manor itself in later Middlewich Diary postings.
SEE ALSO: NOW & THEN: MANOR LODGE
                    MANOR LODGE: A CHRISTMAS MEMORY

HOW TO MAKE A COMMENT ON A DIARY ENTRY

HOW TO MAKE A COMMENT ON A DIARY ENTRY

If the 'comments' box is not already visible after an entry, click on the word'comments' in blue (there will be a number in front of it if there have been previous comments). Click on this and enter your comment in the box. On the drop down list below marked 'Comment as: Select profile' select 'Name/URL' and type your name in the top box (you do not need to enter anything in the other box). Then click on 'continue' and then 'publish'. You should get a message saying 'your comment will be visible after approval'.
All comments are moderated to prevent spam. 
We have tried to make it as easy as possible to add comments, and this is as easy as Blogger allows us to make it.
You can still add comments on our Middlewich Diary Facebook Group and on any of the other groups to which we post links.

BIG LOCK AND SILK WORKS 1970s

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

This is the somewhat depressing face that the Big Lock pub presented to the world (well, the canal world, at any rate) during the early 1970s.

It's a tall and potentially  impressive building, but was always rather overpowered by the milk factory/silk works which, as can be seen here, rubbed shoulders with it for many years.

A cobbled alleyway (actually laid with setts, which is a slightly different thing - see this posting) separated the pub and the factory, and  still slopes up from towpath level to the road above.

The Big Lock is what the late Brian Curzon used to call a 'stack pub', built on two levels.

Until the end of commercial canal carrying in the 1960s the establishment also operated on two levels in a different way too, with a bar at street level catering for the inabitants of Webbs Lane, and a bar for the boatmen and their families at towpath level, seen here with its arched door and window on the right hand side of the pub.

It's possible that the opening hours of the two bars were split between daytime hours for the lower bar and evening hours for the upper one, to cater for the two different types of clientele. It was also the practice, before the pub was drastically altered in the 1980s, to open  the bottom bar in the depths of winter to cater for the Webbs Lane trade, saving on heating and lighting costs for the much bigger bar on the top level.

The clumsily done and lighter coloured infilled brickwork next to the bar was where the shop selling provisions to canal users was situated.

It's tempting to think of this shop as something of a makeshift affair but, in fact, it was a real shop with plate glass windows and a central door, such as could be found in any High Street.

The Big Lock today is a smart pub-restaurant and a much more attractive looking building.

with a balcony overlooking the canal and a new downstairs bar and function room. 

The essential features from the old building, including the ornate terra cotta work outside the boaters bar, have been retained.

From 1990 onwards the pub was a venue for the original Folk & Boat Festival and plays a similar role in the new Middlewich FAB Festival.

For a time, after fire destroyed the large factory building on the right and it was replaced by a modern single storey building, the pub dominated the area and looked a little out of place. However, now that modern housing has been built on the site of the old silk mill, on the other side of that steep cobbled alleyway, the old look of the area has been somewhat restored. A recent photo by Cliff Astles illustrates this, and can be seen here.

On the other side of the lock from the pub is a relatively new addition to the Middlewich scene, the much admired 'Welcome To Middlewich' sign.

Photo:Salt Town Productions

Until the early 1970s there was a lock-keeper's cottage on the other side of the lock which always seemed to lead a rather precarious existence, and you can read about it here.

The Big Lock - i.e. the canal lock - is interesting in itself. It's the only lock in the town capable of taking two boats, side by side, and the reason for this is very simple.

Originally it was possible for wide boats to come up from the River Weaver right into the centre of Middlewich to load salt at the Town Wharf, avoiding transhipment from narrow to wide boats.

However, when the aqueduct over the River Dane at Croxton was washed away by severe flooding in the 1930s, it was replaced by a narrow aqueduct capable only of taking narrow boats. In any case the potential of Middlewich Town Wharf was never fully exploited as trade was concentrated on Preston Brook instead.

The steel lock gates, which were installed in the 1960s, were unusual (and a little inelegant) but  stood the test of time. They were in place for many years,  painted in pleasing British Waterways black and white, but have now been replaced by more traditional wooden gates.

THE BIG LOCK IN 2012

THE BIG LOCK circa 1875

Facebook Comments:

Daniel Preston: In the mid-sixties I used to go to that area with some of the lads and lasses from Webbs Lane. There was a rope swing, such as Tarzan is depicted as using, which we used to swing ourselves over the canal. I don't know what the rope was made of, but it was a stretchy material, so as you swung over the canal it stretched.

 I can't remember what it was tethered to, only that it was in the area of the silk works. I think it was possible to swing across, let go and land on the other side of the canal.

Robert Shecklestone: In the late 70s I drank in the Big Lock when Freddy Dutton was the landlord.

Dave Roberts: So did I. I still see Fred and Clarice about the town. Very nice people.

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CONDENSED MILK FACTORY, FINNEYS LANE 1920s

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

The Nestlé-Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Factory still  looms large in Middlewich history, despite the fact that it closed many years ago.
Now that the factory itself, which was also used as a silk mill for many years, has disappeared to be replaced by yet more housing, the only evidence that it was ever here is in the name of the former manager's house, Swiss Cottage, which stands nearby in Webb's Lane.
Our picture shows the huge bulk of the factory stretching away from the Big Lock pub, which is just beyond the large building on the  left, to run alongside the Trent & Mersey canal as it heads for Northwich. On the extreme left you may just about be able to make out the footbridge which still carries the public footpath from King Street, near the entrance to Harbutt's Field, to Webb's Lane.
Henri Nestlé was born in 1812 in Frankfurt and made his fortune in the dairy industry both on the continent and in the UK, despite competition from his arch-rivals the Page Brothers, founders of Anglo-Swiss.

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It was the merger of the two companies in 1905 which led to the establishment of the Nestlé-Anglo-Swiss company.
The Middlewich factory was the major factory in the group, which also had premises in other towns around the country. In fact the company's design department was based here and produced plans for the other factories in the group.
When I was growing up in King Street our neightbour, Dora Darlington, used to regale us with stories of riding around the town on the back of the milk cart which delivered milk and other products in the area, eating that famous local delicacy a 'conny-onny butty' (or condensed milk sandwich, to the uninitiated).
Which brings us to another peculiarity of the local dialect. Although Middlewich English uses the short form of vowels - as in 'bath' rather than 'barth' and 'conny-onny' is pronounced exactly as spelt, the longer form - i.e. 'condensed milk' (if you can have a longer form of something that's condensed) is always pronounced 'corndensed milk'.
Similarly 'concrete' is always 'corncrete'.
Just so you'll know if you ever walk into a local shop or builder's merchant and try to buy condensed milk or concrete. I wouldn't want you to get looked at askance.
It's easy to see why Middlewich should have been chosen as a place to manufacture condensed milk; despite the fact that the town was highly industrialised it does stand right in the middle of lush Cheshire dairy country There was also, at one time, a Kraft Cheese factory not too far away in Holmes Chapel Road, more or less where the Shell Garage now stands and  the Little Chef restaurant could be found until it closed in January 2012. The Little Chef has now been replaced (2014) by a Starbucks Coffee Shop and a branch of the Subway sandwich chain
The closure of the milk factory in 1931 was a blow to the local economy, and there were sighs of relief when the premises were taken over in 1932 for use as a silk factory.
It's hard to resist using the obvious phrase, so I won't: It was a case of 'from milk to silk'.
The silk mill was operated by  British Crepe Ltd, a division of the Macclesfield silk makers G H Heath & Co. The massive brick built factory was reduced in size over the years following several disastrous fires, and production at Middlewich, which by then had moved over to synthetic fibres, ended up being carried out in modern industrial units before final closure at Middlewich in 2003.
Production was then moved to Manor Lane in Holmes Chapel  and the company ceased production there in around 2005-6. Many thanks to Gina Nicholson (see Facebook feedback, below).

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SEE ALSO FINNEY'S LANE 1968
                    BIG LOCK AND CONDENSED MILK FACTORY 1920s

Facebook feedback:
Geraldine Williams: It never occurred to me why Swiss Cottage was so named. Doh!


Gina Nicholson: British Crepe closed for good in Holmes Chapel about six years ago (2005-6? -Ed). My Dad, Alan Dean, worked there for 40 years until it closed. It did move to Holmes Chapel around 2003.

OLD BUFFERS IN KING STREET, 1975 (BUILDING THE MIDDLEWICH LOOP)

Well, apologies if the title of this entry caught your eye and you're taking a look to see if it's anyone you might know. These are the buffers in question, lying discarded by the side of the Sandbach-Middlewich-Northwich line near King Street. Work was going on on the line to create a long 'passing loop' stretching all the way from the Holmes Chapel Road (or 'Station') Bridge to the King Street Bridge, where that road moves from one side of the line to the other. Previously, trains had crossed over onto the single line to Northwich just a few yards from the station, and the second line was merely a long siding (a 'headshunt' in railway terms) which enabled trains to gain access to the station goods yards and also get out of the way if a following train needed to overtake them for any reason by drawing forward along this siding. A very time consuming and cumbersome way of working, of course, as the trains in question would then have to reverse in order to reach the crossover onto the Northwich line.
The simple, and obvious, solution once the station yard had closed was to take out the crossover near the station and create one at the end of the long siding, which necessitated the removal of these buffers, which had been in situ for many years.
Oddly, this wasn't done as part of any resignalling scheme (resignalling with colour lights only happened five years later, in 1980), and meant that the old mechanical signalling system had to be modified, because the end of the loop was quite a distance away from the signal box, out of sight of the signalman. 
The viaduct taking the line over the River Dane can be seen on the extreme right and the sign with a white 'T' on a black background signifies the end of a temporary speed restriction, in place while the work went on.

The two photographs above were taken at the same time and show the old track panels which were replaced to form the new 'Middlewich Loop'.
At this stage the points connecting the loop to the Northwich line had yet to be installed.
Remarkably, the two photographs above were replicated thirty-three years later when Robert Avery photographed the Cheshire Gardens Express in 2008

This was the first steam train to travel over the Middlewich line for forty years. The Middlewich Rail Link Campaign's parent organisation, the Mid-Cheshire Rail Users' Association, hoped to run steam trains via this route again this year (2012) but, at the time of publication, it appears doubtful that this will happen. However, given the popularity of the line for rail tours, there's always the possibility that one of the other rail tour companies may stage another steam comeback on the line before too long.
See also
STEAMING THROUGH MIDDLEWICH
and
STEAM ON THE MIDDLEWICH LINE

CREWE SOUTH SHED (LINK)

Here's a link to a poem about trainspotters I wrote many years ago called Crewe South Shed.
The reason it's emerged now is that a gentleman who runs a blog in, of all places, Japan, asked me for permission to quote it in an article he's writing about railway enthusiasts (to give them their Sunday name).
The gentleman in question, I should add, is not Japanese himself but hails originally from (I think) Sheffield.
The connection between Crewe and Middlewich is close enough for me to feature a link here (and, anyway, I'm the editor, so who's arguing?) and generations of schoolchildren from this area have spent hours watching locos at Crewe South Shed (and Crewe North,  Crewe Diesel Depot and  Crewe Electric Depot too)
Our own little local train, the Dodger, used to run to and from Crewe (as, I can assure you, will its modern equivalent one fine, enlightened day - I  am hoping to live to see it) and the town of Crewe itself now finds itself in the same local authority area as dear old Middlewich. Lucky Crewe.
Incidentally, if you should be  wondering whether Crewe South Shed itself is a thing of the past, it's reassuring to find that the Northern Belle Pullman train company gives its current address as Crewe South Shed, Weston Road, Crewe.

CREWE SOUTH SHED

COTTAGES AND SALT WORKS BUILDINGS IN BROOKS LANE 1970

by Dave Roberts
Here's another Middlewich Diary entry which was going to be ever so simple.
A nice, semi rural, almost idyllic picture of some cottages next to a salt works. But unfortunately my eye fell on the curious building with a gantry on top of it next to those cottages.
We're in Brooks Lane back in 1970 and we're standing on the topmost of the three Brooks Lane locks on the Trent & Mersey Canal. Out of shot to the left is that strange right-angled turn in the canal, after which it drops down through the remaining two locks to town centre level. Out of shot to the right is the old ICI Club (now the Middlewich Community Church).

What's immediately noticeable is the still semi-rural aspect of Brooks Lane at this time, with what appears to be a smallholding of some kind to the right of our picture.
The picture was taken before ERF moved its spares and repair facilities to Middlewich from Sandbach, a condition of which was the upgrading of Brooks Lane to take heavy lorries. Crucially, it was this that led to the creation of the 'Brooks Lane Industrial Estate' and the industrial units which are now all over the entire area.
On the other hand, it can hardly be said that Brooks Lane was free from industry before the early 1970s. Very far from it. It was the home of salt and chemical works for a great many years and the evidence is here for all to see. 
On the extreme left is one of the chimneys of Seddon's Salt Works, incredibly close to two cottages. We often hear the phrase, 'living in the shadow of the local factory', but it's quite rare to see the idea demonstrated so vividly.
To the right of the cottages is something very interesting indeed - a building which I at first took to be Murgatroyd's Brine Pump no 1,which we've looked at before. Now, I'm not so sure.
This pump,or, more properly, pumps, which still sit over the brine shaft discovered by Murgatroyd in 1889, supplied high quality brine to the Murgatroyd's open pan salt works which stood close by until 1966 (in fact, had the picture been taken four years earlier, the Murgatroyd's works and its four chimneys would have dominated the background).
The brine pump building owes its survival  to the fact that in 1949  additional pumps had been installed to pump brine, via the 'brine line' which ran (and still runs, though in a disused state), alongside the nearby railway line from Brooks Lane to the Murgatroyd's Works at Elworth, where the company ran a vacuum salt plant and also extracted chlorine gas from common salt from which various chemicals such as hydrochloric acid could be produced.
More on this  can be found here and here.
Brine pumping ceased in 1977, but the building and three electric brine pumps have survived and, it is hoped, will be preserved as an important part of Middlewich's heritage. 
But is the building shown here with a simple gantry above it the brine pump building in question? The building which exists today has a much taller and more elaborate gantry on the top of it. One possibility, of course, is that the building and gantry were altered sometime during the seven years between this picture being taken and the building falling into disuse, but this would seem to be very unlikely. And I have a niggling feeling that the brine pump building was (and is) a little further over to the left and closer to the railway line. So if this is not the brine pump building, what is it? If it is not a brine pump, or a building associated with brine pumping, why was it not demolished in 1966 along with the rest of the salt works (and, indeed, the building to the right of it - see below)?
 I'm hoping that Kerry Fletcher of Middlewich Town Council, who kindly supplied some of the information on the brine pump which we've used in this and earlier Diary entries might be able to point us in the right direction.

To the right of this mysterious structure  is another building, long since vanished, which looks to me very much like the building shown here:

This drawing is taken from a Cheshire Museums Service illustration of the Murgatroyd's open pan works (not, unfortunately, including the brine pump building) which appears on page 37 of 'Wych & Water' (Middlewich Vision Canal & Salt Town Project 2009)* The brine ran from a large tank on top of the works' waggon repair shop to the salt pans. Quite why this building (if it is the one in the illustration) should have survived, devoid of its brine tank, four years after the works was closed and demolished, is unclear. Perhaps it was retained for operational reasons - i.e. it may have contained pipework necessary for the pumping of brine to Elworth.
* Copies of this illustration, in a large format, are (or were) available from the Weaver Hall Museum (formerly the Salt Museum).
So there we are - another mystery to be looked into...


Facebook feedback:
Daniel Preston: I remember there was a smallholding down Brooks Lane, a small farm. There was also a car scrapyard complete with junkyard dog in the 1970s. The scrapyard may have taken over from the smallholding as, to my memory, it was similarly situated.
Andrew Tomlinson: This is one for my mother - my grandparents ran the old ICI Club for years.

THE MIDDLEWICH DIARY ARCHIVE

THE MIDDLEWICH DIARY ARCHIVE

Now that 2011 is finally behind us it might be a good time to remind everyone of the archive we have built up so far.

There are currently 319 entries (we have dropped the 'official' blogger word 'postings' because 'entries' seemed more appropriate for a diary) or 320 if you include this one.

Some of them, but only a few, are simply links to various useful web sites and Facebook groups owned by local organisations and companies.

Most of them are entries containing photographs of various vintages with explanatory notes, written by me. This is where the internet scores over conventional 'paper publishing'. If  (God forbid) I should get something wrong, or if anyone has additional information about a particular entry, it can be altered very easily.. 

Over the months we have had some epic struggles in our attempts to tease out the truth behind some obscure aspect of an old photograph:
BUILDINGS IN WHEELOCK STREET

If you're puzzled by the reference in the above entry to 'Sharon's Cafe', it's explained by the fact that from time to time we have received queries from our readers. A classic example of this was when Sharon Barnard innocently asked if anyone could 'remember a cafe near the Vaults in 1977', little realising what she was starting:
THE SHARON'S CAFE SAGA

There are two ways to access the entries in 'A Middlewich Diary'. You can either go to the blue list on the right hand side of each entry (scroll down to the bottom), which gives you access first to the year of the entry, then the month. Click on the relevant month and a list of that month's entries is displayed.
Or you can scroll down to the bottom of any entry to find the Diary index. We're in the process of tidying this up in order to make it easier to use
 Just click on any subject in the index and a list of Diary entries will be displayed.
A Middlewich Diary will continue throughout 2012 and into the future. We have lots of exciting plans which we'll be talking about as the year progresses.
We've just got space to mention one of those ideas here: 'The Middlewich Diary Pub Quiz'.
This has been inspired by the series of  quizzes we were involved with in 2010/11 in aid of the Mayor's Charity. By far the most popular and enjoyable of these quizzes was the 'Middlewich' quiz, held at the White Horse in March 2011.
It proved, as does the 'Middlewich Diary' throughout the year, that people in Middlewich are interested in their town and its past, present and future, despite what the dwindling number of miserable mutterers and moaners might say.
So we are proposing a series of charity pub quizzes throughout the year at various venues, each featuring at least one round of questions very much centred on Middlewich.
Proceeds will be given to various local charities.
These will be simple, old-fashioned pub quizzes, bringing you entertainment, nostalgia and fun..
And each quiz will feature (after the event, of course) on 'A Middlewich Diary' so that everyone can join in.
At the moment we're just trying to find out what level of interest these quizzes might have, so if you think it's a good idea, please let us know.
Dave Roberts
Editor