BRUNNER MOND/MURGATROYD'S CHEMICAL WORKS EARLY 20th CENTURY

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

As regular readers of the Middlewich Diary will know, our main problem when dealing with old photographs lies in finding something like an accurate date for each one. It's important because only by establishing the period in which a photograph was taken can we know what we're looking at.

On the other hand, the Middlewich Diary is not a historical treatise in any way, and our on-line format gives us the great luxury of being able to change and augment each Diary entry as new information comes to light.

So we're hoping that someone might be able to help us with the date of this particular photo.

The chemical works shown here will be recognised by many long standing Middlewich residents (although the buildings and industrial equipment on the site changed considerably over the years). 

It was originally opened by Murgatroyd's, at the time known as the Murgatroyd's  Ammonia-Soda and Salt Syndicate but later, in 1949, to become Murgatroyd's Salt & Chemical Company, just ahead of the opening of their new works at Elworth.

Murgatroyd's were owners of the adjacent salt works (out of shot to the left and between this works and the railway line).

The works suffered from the start from severe competition from Brunner Mond, who eventually took it over. Does anyone know the year of that takeover?

By the time of  its closure in 1962, the works was run by  ICI  but, throughout its life was always generally known as the Mid-Cheshire Works or Mid-Cheshire Alkali Works.

We think it likely that the above photograph was taken during the works' time as Brunner Mond, in the early twentieth century, but it's just possible that it might still have been  under Murgatroyd's ownership at the time. 

If you've seen this photograph before and can enlighten us, we'd be delighted, as always, to hear from you.

One clue may be that on page 127 of Allan Earl's Middlewich 1900-1950 (Cheshire Country Publishing 1994) there is a picture of this works taken from a different angle - possibly from what is now the Booth Lane children's playground between the ends of St Ann's and Kitfield Avenues - and the buildings and equipment look to be very much the same as in our photo. The picture is described in the book as being of Brunner Mond Works. Without going into all the complicated technicalities, Murgatroyd's processes differed from those used by Brunner Mond and it follows that the equipment used would also be different so it's possible that someone with real knowledge of such equipment might be able to tell the difference.

On the extreme right (of our photo), minding its own business, is the Kings Lock pub, and centre left is the start of that arm of the Trent & Mersey Canal which, in the present day, serves one of the local boatyards.

The part of the  chemical works site shown here is now home to Pochin Ltd and the land to the south covered by railway sidings in Chemical Works days was the home to ERF Service between 1971 and 2000.

SEE ALSO: ICI WORKS 1960s

THE KINGS LOCK 1960s

by Dave Roberts

Nothing illustrates the decline of the canal system and its subsequent revival as part of the leisure industry better than this picture postcard from the mid to late 1960s, which we've taken from the Paul Hough Collection.
The harsh winter of 1962-3 dealt a body blow to the canal carrying industry, with boats marooned in frozen waterways for weeks on end and precious revenue-earning cargoes having to be abandoned or very expensively transferred to road transport.
The use of the canals for carrying goods more or less came to an end at that time, although a few traders carried on into the 1970s.
Others began to look at the possibility of entering the new canal  holiday industry.
Ironically it was the semi-dereliction of the inland waterways at that time which attracted many people to them and there was a pioneering atmosphere in the early days of  canal cruising which has now disappeared as the waterways have been smartened up, a better maintenance programme introduced, and new facilities added.
A far cry indeed from the situation in the 1960s when people actually campaigned to have canals drained and filled in; something which would be unthinkable now.
Our picture catches the Kings Lock pub in that period of limbo between the end of commercial canal carrying and the burgeoning leisure boat industry really getting into its stride.
We've dated it as 'mid-to-late 60s' partly because of  its general air of  faded glory and partly because of the  ICI buildings just visible to the left of the pub.
The works closed in 1962 and these two buildings, along with many others, were demolished a few years later (a similar but larger building, out of shot to the left, was retained and put to use by Pochins Ltd when they took over the site at the end of the decade). So we think we're safe in dating the picture as we have.
On the lockside, in front of the pub, can be seen a small brick building used by lengthsmen to store tools and materials for the maintenance of the canals.
This building was later reduced in height and given a flat roof before suddenly disappearing altogether in the late 1990s, a few days before the Folk & Boat Festival one year.
According to Ian Murfitt:
'The little building on the lockside was originally a Toll house, which charged boats to go up 'Heart Break Hill' to Kidsgrove, where there is an identical building. When Billy Foden, the landlady, knocked it down, there was some confusion at British Waterways and a few days later a BW man arrived and asked for his shed back'.

The Kings Lock is another one of Brian Curzon's 'stack pubs', built on two levels; in this case to provide stabling and other facilities for boatmen and their families at the rear of the building.

Behind the pub's garden is a short length of canal which was built for industrial purposes but now leads to a boatyard, complete with slipway for the launching of new and repaired boats.
The Kings Lock was always a boatees' pub, although it also enjoyed, and still enjoys, a lot of patronage from local residents.
At one time it had just the tiniest of bars and a very small dining room but, in recent years, a genius of an interior designer has opened the place out and there is much more room than there used to be.
In the 1990s a new bar was built in the shape of a Narrowboat, closely resembling the one at The Shroppie Fly at Audlem.
The Kings Lock today takes full advantage of the tourists who pass through Middlewich on the canals.
 It played a big part in the Folk & Boat Festival almost from the start, and is still a major venue for the Middlewich FAB Festival.

SEE ALSO: KINGS LOCK 1970s
                    ICI WORKS

HERITAGE SOCIETY PLAQUES: THE TOWN BRIDGE

by Dave Roberts
In 1995 the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter was pleased to announce that the Heritage Society 'had embarked on a programme of marking areas of special historical or architectural interest with cast metal plaques'.
This special one which, as can be seen, was put in place in 1998, was designed to fill the long-empty space where the original bronze plaque marking the opening of the 'new' Town Bridge in December 1931 had been.
What happened to the original is anyone's guess (unless anyone reading this can enlighten us?). The general consensus of opinion was that it was either stolen and sold for scrap or that the usual 'mindless vandals' had removed it and thrown it over the parapet into the Trent & Mersey Canal.
Personally, I'm inclined to believe the 'stolen for scrap' theory: vandals are notoriously mindless but also usually quite lazy and it's unlikely that anyone would want to go to the trouble of removing something like this merely for the pleasure of making a small splash. Then again, who knows just how pin-headed vandals' minds work?
The canal has been drained on several occasions since the original plaque went missing, and there have never been any reports of it being found.
I think it's much more likely that it was stolen and sold for scrap.
The replacement is actually rather more attractive than the original, and serves a dual purpose with its black-and-white colour scheme marking it out as a Heritage Society plaque and, at the same time, as a replacement for its long - lost predecessor.
The plaque, by the way, is actually completely rectangular, rather than wedge-shaped as it appears in our photograph.
This is the best I could do: to take the picture properly so as to give the plaque its correct shape would have involved crouching in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Christendom - a risk I wasn't prepared to take.
The grey area at the bottom of the photograph, where we have placed the credits, is  part of the pavement and is actually at right angles to the concrete bridge parapet.
For information about the Town Bridge itself, see this entry

MIDDLEWICH ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY IN KING STREET 1968 (2)

As a follow up to this entry here are a two more slides from 1968 showing a couple of the leading lights in the Middlewich Archaeological Society at that time.

In the top picture we see local schoolteacher Ken Laundon who, at first glance, appears to be scanning the horizon. In fact he is probably doing nothing more interesting than adjusting his glasses, or scratching his nose.

There would be no point in his  scanning the horizon from this location, anyway, as all he would be able to see would be his own house which, as we've already mentioned in our earlier entry, was just on the other side of King Street and a matter of yards away.

The second picture shows the then Surveyor of the Middlewich Urban District Council, Donald Stubbs, apparently explaining some obscure point about Roman history to a couple of youngsters.

The houses to the right of Donald are at the very end of Kings Crescent; the one between him and the combined lamp-post/electricity pole belonging to the Cheshire Constabulary.

'BAGGIN' TIME' AT MURGATROYDS

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If you own the copyright on this photograph, please let us know

A happy group of workers at Murgatroyds Salt Works in Brooks Lane.

They are: Jack Clarke, Tom Gallimore, Bob Peach and Bill Challinor and they're all taking a well-earned rest from their labours and sitting on whatever is available to sit on, which includes blocks of salt.

This photograph has all the hallmarks of being taken by a professional photographer and could well have been taken during the last shift at the works before it closed.

As Middlewich Town Council's Heritage Officer Kerry Fletcher reminded us in a recent contribution:

The last salt lump at Murgatroyd's was produced in December 1966. The Manchester Evening News came to take photographs of the last shift. The open pans were in operation for 76 years almost to the day, as the first salt lump was produced as the New Year of 1890 was seen in.


So this might well be a photo of the last 'baggin' time' at Murgatroyd's.

Note the footwear. Clogs were the traditional footwear of salt workers, as they were able to stand the harsh corrosive conditions in the open pan works much better than traditional boots.
By this time a form of combination clog/boot seems to have been the style, but the cloth bindings secured with string which kept the abrasive salt out of the worker's trouser-legs can still be seen.

SEE ALSO: MURGATROYD'S SALT WORKS AERIAL VIEW
                    MURGATROYD'S SALT STORE ROOM

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Geraldine Williams 'Baggin' - now there's an expression I haven't heard for a long time. It seemed to disappear along with 'snap' and 'bait' presumable the Northumbrian pronunciation of 'bite') when the boring 'packed lunch' took over.

Dave Roberts At ERF we favoured the term 'brew time' and lunch time was ALWAYS 'dinner time'. As it was for the rest of Middlewich, of course. We got too hungry for dinner at eight...

Geraldine Williams But what would you have called food brought from home? Bet you had a staff canteen!

Dave Roberts We did have a staff canteen, but we of the lower orders weren't allowed into it. We used the adjacent works canteen, which was carefully screened from the staff canteen in case one of the poor dears should catch a glimpse of someone in overalls and have a fit of the vapours. Food brought from home was 'snap' or , simply, 'butties'. The works rules allowed for anyone using the word 'sandwiches' to be thrown out of the place immediately, and there was no appeals procedure in place. I once had a ploughman's lunch, but he made me give it back...

Geraldine Williams The old ones are the best!

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MIDDLEWICH TOWN COUNCIL EVENTS - A MESSAGE FROM DAVE THOMPSON

Here's a message from Middlewich Town Council's Events Manager, Dave Thompson:

HELP! my PC suffered a virus on Monday resulting in loss of all emails/contact lists.

I`m asking everyone to send out a short message (via their websites/blogs/Facebook etc) asking anyone who`s been in contact with me for this year's events to please email me again at the same address- events@middlewich.org.uk

Many thanks in advance.

Dave Thompson

Events Manager

Middlewich Town Council

Victoria Building

Lewin Street

Middlewich

CW10 9AS

01606 833434

07765 025596

THE MIDDLEWICH LIDO (CROXTON WATER FALL 3)

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 'Middlewich Lido', of course, being a slightly ironic term coined by Geraldine Williams when I gave her a sneak preview of this photo before publication.

This was her reaction: 'This is brill. Positively turns the spot into the Middlewich (albeit dangerous) Lido'.

Which is a fair point.

When we were all a good deal younger a favourite pursuit on a sunny Sunday afternoon was to go 'down the river'.

The river in question being the River Dane.

But our favourite spot on the river (for King Streeters at least) was on the other side of the railway viaduct and road bridge, on the stretch between Middlewich and Byley Bridge.

It was Ravenscroft Hall not Croxton Hall which gazed down upon our paddling and splashing and early attempts at the breast stroke.

But Croxton Hall and the 'Croxton Water Fall(s)' are from a far earlier era. We're grateful once more to Mike Jennings for supplying the above post-card which shows more of the 'water fall' itself than the previous one and shows us just what a substantial structure it was.

I can't resist another comparison with Jim Moores' recent shot of the river and weir:

Such a drastic change, even taking into account the amount of time between the two photographs. But there's something about those walls on the far bank of the river which just doesn't look right in the modern shot. Shouldn't the wall be sloping down to the left as it does in the old picture? Or is it simply that Jim's shot is taken from the opposite bank of the river -  that his shot is 'the other way round'?

Here's what Mike has to say about the post-card:

'I have come across this photo of Croxton waterfall in my collection. I don't know if you have seen this one?

I wonder who that lot are paddling in there? Judging by the trees and bushes it looks like this photo was taken at a different time than the previous one'.

And Mike has also been doing further research into Croxton Water Fall(s) on our behalf:

Hi Dave

I have been talking to my father who used to clear out the debris from the waterfall which by all accounts was connected to ICI Lostock. They used to do health and Safety surveys on it. I will gather more information from him. He also states that the building burned down at some point killing a number of people?

I will also get more info on this.

Many thanks to Mike and Geraldine and everyone else who has taken an interest in this topic. We await developments, as always.

See also: CROXTON WATER FALL (AND ASSOCIATED ENTRIES - PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINKS)

CROXTON WATER FALL (2)

MIDDLEWICH TRAILS BROCHURE 2010

(THIS MIDDLEWICH DIARY ENTRY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED ON 15/02/2012)

This brochure is available now from Middlewich Town Council's offices at Victoria Building in Lewin Street, and features eight walks in and around Middlewich: The Croxton Trail, the Middlewich Town Trail, the Roman Trail, the 'Tales of Wych & Water' Trail, the Waterside Trail, the Six Locks Trail, the Kinderton Walk, and the Wimboldsley Walk.
The directional information in the brochure has been compiled by Alan Wrench of Congleton Ramblers Society and the heritage information by Kerry Fletcher, the Town Council's Heritage Development Officer.
Photographs are by Cliff Astles.
The brochure is now available free and Town Clerk Jonathan Williams says: 'There are plenty available for collection, so please come and collect one'.