VICTORIA BUILDING and LEWIN STREET 1987

by Dave Roberts

From the Carole Hughes collection, and courtesy of Carole's friend Diane Parr, comes this view of Lewin Street twenty-five years ago including, on the left, the Victoria Building, home to the Middlewich Town Council, its predecessor, the Middlewich Urban District Council (until 1974), and various other organisations.
You can see that the practice of displaying notices in the office windows was already well-established, and that someone from Congleton Borough thought he/she could come up with a better arrangement (see below)
The main door at the front of the building was originally also the 'official' entrance to the Civic Hall and there was an illuminated red and white sign over the door reading 'Council Offices & Civic Hall'.
This dated back to the opening of the Civic Hall in September 1969 but, as can be seen,  had disappeared by 1987.
In general the Lewin Street scene looked much as it does today.
Until, that is, you look closely.
Surprisingly, the ramp access to the council offices was already in place by this date, and is, of course, still there, but the glass boxes for official council notices on their brick plinth are long gone.
This arrangement, put in place by Congleton Borough Council,  could best be described as a 'triumph of hope over experience'.
Townspeople looked at those vulnerable-looking boxes with a mixture of scorn and amusement and the general opinion was that they 'wouldn't last five minutes'.
And they didn't.
To be fair, I don't think they would have 'lasted five minutes' in any era, or in any town.
They were soon gone, smashed to pieces by the local idiots, but the brick plinth lingered for many years afterwards with the remains of the metal struts for the boxes sticking out of the top as a reminder of why 'we can't have anything nice', as one resident forlornly put it to me all those years ago.
The former co-op shop was already in business as a chemists in 1987, as stated in the curiously old-fashioned (even then) 'Stymie' typeface (the same one used by Granada TV in the early 1960s) on the end of the building.
At this time the shop  was, I think, owned by Mr N G Stott, and still had its central doorway as in Co-op days. Before becoming a chemists, the shop served time as a laundrette and as a Landrover Sales & Service outlet..
Can anyone clear up a bit of confusion here? Mr Stott also used a shop further down the road at the Lewin Street end of Hightown (the shop now known as 'Jennie Edwards'), but I can't remember in which order these shops were used. Did he move from Lewin Street to Hightown, or was it the other way round?
Any information on this gratefully received.
Also seen on the end wall are the still extant post-box, one of the 'new-style' BT telephone boxes (which is still in situ, and has, in fact, just been repaired at the time of writing) and that road sign which caused us some puzzlement here.

The shop is (for the present) still a chemist - one of two Rowlands Pharmacy branches in the town, and also Middlewich's Post Office.
Next comes the pub originally known as The Crown and now named The Narrowboat.
At the time of our photograph it was called The Danes as can be seen from the sign over the door.
The Danes was run by a former landlord of The Red Lion and boasted a specially made carpet woven with representations of Great Danes.
There were also several real Great Dane dogs on the premises.
The pub at this time was very long and thin, making full use of the former outbuildings and well-known as a 'disco pub' with state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems.
A For Sale sign can be seen underneath the pub sign. Was this the beginning of the end for The Danes?
Certainly The Narrowboat was in existence in the early years of the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival which started in 1990.
Next comes a small alleyway giving access to the rear of the pub and a small car park (now effectively blocked by a new extension on the side of the pub) and then Fred Dodd's Gents Outfitters.
 The row of houses between Dodd's and the library had gone by this time.

SEE ALSO: LEWIN STREET 1972
                    LEWIN STREET 1987

CHESHIRE IN THE THIRTIES

We're leaving Middlewich behind for a little while as we take a circular tour around the old County of Cheshire as it was just before the Second World War (although we do end up just a short distance down the road at Bostock Hall).
Clifford Ridgway took his 16mm camera, loaded with some early colour film and recorded the sights of the pre-war county for posterity, taking in Sandbach, Barthomley, Moreton Old Hall, Marton, Gawsworth, Warburton, Lymm, Arley Hall (near Northwich), Chester & the River Dee, Eaton Hall, Shocklach, Peckforton Castle, Beeston Castle, Horsley's Well*, Bunbury, Eaton, Rushton, Cotebrook, Great Budworth and Bostock Hall (near Middlewich).
Sadly old colour film does not seem to stand the test of time as its more stable black and white equivalent does and the colour is somewhat faded, but this film is beautiful nonetheless.
It's worthwhile remembering too, that Cheshire today is just as beautiful .
One day, when time allows, we plan to remake this film in HD to prove the point.

*a word about 'Horsley's Well'. The caption included in this film is the only mention we've ever seen of 'Horsley's Well'.
As can be seen in the film, it appeared to be quite a well-known tourist spot situated close to Beeston Castle, but very little is known about it in the present day.
The closest we can get using an internet search is a mention of 'Horsley Bath' which is in the grounds of a private house at Beeston and is reputed to have its origin in Roman Times.
 It is 'fed by its own underground spring', so must be the same place as there are shots of  water flowing into the 'well' in the film.
Recent pictures show it looking more like an ordinary garden fish pond than anything else.
Accounts suggest that it was a tourist attraction 'up until around 1904' but our film seems to suggest that people were visiting it long after that date.
As always, we welcome any information on this.

We recommend that you watch the film on Youtube by clicking on the link below.

YOUTUBE LINK: CHESHIRE IN COLOUR

GENESIS OF A CHARITY PUB QUIZ (ARCHIVED)

ARCHIVED

by DAVE ROBERTS

Preparations begin in earnest next week for the first ever MIDDLEWICH DIARY CHARITY QUIZ, which takes place at THE BOAR'S HEAD on Thursday 14th June.

It's just the first in a series of occasional pub quizzes which we're running to celebrate the Middlewich Diary's first birthday, to raise money for various charities - local, national and international - and above all FOR A LAUGH!

Details of the quiz, along with a link to the website of WATER AID, our first chosen charity, can be found here, and more details will be added as we get everything together.

We're looking for teams of (up to) four people, and we're hoping that local organisations will want to get teams together to enjoy an evening of jollity for a good cause.

So far two teams have registered an interest - Liz Rosenfield's 'Cheshire Folk' team and Mike Jenning's 'Buff Orpington Trio' (although there are four of them).

Let us know if you want to register a team, or, alternatively, just turn up on the night.

We're hoping for many more, so please contact us if you'd like to take part.


Starting the fund-raising ball rolling is Paul Stevens, who donated the albums seen above to a charity auction held at The Boar's a few years ago.

I was the highest bidder and have had the albums ever since.

I've only  played them once (to transfer them into digital form).

Now, like all sensible people, Paul's decided that he rather liked his old vinyl collection and has bought a new turntable.

He asked me the other day if I'd like to sell these Genesis classics back to him and we've agreed that, for a donation to our Water Aid fund, the albums can return to Paul's collection.

If you'd like to donate prizes for the quiz, or take part, contact Peter Cox on the e-mail address shown here.

Thank you!

DIARY ENTRY ARCHIVED 28/7/2012

LOWER STREET and HIGHTOWN circa 1971

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

Following the demolition of Vernon Coopers and other property in Lower Street at the beginning of the 1970s it was possible to take this photo in the short period before work on demolishing Hightown itself  began.
Although, as we can see, the removal of the buildings in  Lower Street had begun in earnest, Dewhurst's butcher's shop and its associated living accomodation were yet to go, and were just to the right of the photographer, as can be seen in this photograph looking in the opposite direction. The metal sign in the right foreground appears in both pictures.
On the extreme right is our poor old butchered butcher's shop and dominating the picture and hiding the parish church from view is the Town Hall and the cluster of buildings around it.
The Town Hall itself was a very large building and was even larger (or should that be longer?) until the 1930s when, as explained here, part of it was demolished to make way for a widened Lower Street when the new Town Bridge was built.
The war memorial is still in its original position behind the end wall of the chemist's shop and it's strange to realise that until the 'piazza' replaced these buildings in the 70s the crowd at the annual Remembrance Day service were obliged to stand on the public thoroughfare.
The square building to the rear of that chemist's shop is intriguing. It's impossible to make out the wording on the sign board, but I seem to recall it was something like 'Winsford Industrial Co-operative Wholesale Society Optical Dept', which seems to indicate that the shop above was also part of the Co-op at this time. (although it may have moved across the road to that part of the 'Co-operative Superstore' building later occupied by Pineland by this date).
The two-level construction of this building is quite interesting in itself, and very reminiscent of one of the late Brian Curzon's 'stack pubs' as explained here.

A MOMENT IN TIME - ERF MIDDLEWICH 2000

by Dave Roberts
We've remarked before that nothing is too trivial or esoteric for our Middlewich Diary, and here's another example of that principle in action.
This is the whiteboard-cum-noticeboard which was placed in the Goods Inward Office at ERF Service in Middlewich in the late 1990s in a bid to improve efficiency.
The fact that a large chunk has been cut out of the board, together with its general air of dilapidation, lends weight to the theory current at the time that its original destination was, in all probability, the rubbish skip and its redeployment in the Goods Inwards Department was a bit of an afterthought.
The Goods Inwards office, and what was known as the 'shop floor' generally, were the usual destination of all cast-offs from 'The Staff', those superior beings who worked in luxurious surroundings and benefited from ever more comfortable chairs, desks, carpets and other office necessities while the worn-out and shabby predecessors of their gleaming new items of equipment were given to us.
Thus we lived out our working days sitting on wobbly chairs (some of which were, it was rumoured, quite capable of breaking your spine when their inevitable collapse finally came) at scratched and wonky old desks.
All this life-expired junk was usually housed in the traditional 'tin-huts' found on the shop floor in many a factory and warehouse.
There's an old ERF tale which I am very happy to vouch for the truth of.
It concerns the late  Mr William Atherton Ravenscroft of Winsford (known to all as Bill) who worked in ERF's Warranty Claims department adjacent to the Goods Inward office.
Bill spent the greater part of every day stapling together various bits of paper to do (presumably) with warranty claims and the click-click-click of his stapler was part of the soundtrack to our working lives.
Inevitably, the day came that Bill's trusty stapler wore out and he put in a requisition for a new one.
This was refused on the grounds that staplers were only issued to office staff and, as Bill worked in a 'tin hut' rather than an office, he was not eligible to be issued with one.
This, I can assure you, is a perfectly true story.
ERF could teach the British Army a thing or two when it came to mind-boggling illogicality and sheer raving lunacy, and I'm sure those who have worked in other factories and warehouses could tell similar stories..
Bill solved the problem in traditional shop floor style.
He sat and read the Daily Mirror all day until someone saw sense and gave him a new stapler.
Back to that notice-board:
The idea, thought up by one of those dynamic whizz-kids who think up such things was to have the whiteboard standing by ready for 'urgent messages'.
Someone descended from on high (well, from the office block, at least) to show us how the whiteboard worked, and how it was possible, using the marker pen, to produce writing on it.
The management fondly imagined this kind of scenario:
If, say,  a replacement gearbox was needed for a distributor in Carlisle, we would take down the information, dash over to the board, and quickly and efficiently write something like

GEARBOX NEEDED FOR DISTRIBUTOR IN CARLISLE

in red ink.
This seldom, if ever, happened.
In practice someone would ring us from Sandbach and give us the details and we would make all the necessary arrangements without recourse to the board.
If you have ever worked in such a place as ERF's stores, you will have guessed what the board was actually used for.
It was used by storekeepers to write libellous and frequently obscene remarks about other storekeepers and  the management.
Occasionally a drawing would appear.
 The one of me, seen on the right of the board in this picture, is, although  far from flattering, probably just about the only one ever found on the board fit to be reproduced here.

Along the bottom of the board are lists of part numbers, distributor codes, items to be transferred from Sandbach to Middlewich and all the other  information we once thought so important but which now, to coin a phrase, 'don't amount to a hill o'beans'.
The car advert was placed there by my colleague Mark Nevitt, who is now a railway signalman, and shows his 'dream car', though what kind of car it might be I couldn't tell you..
To the left of the board, looking rather lost and lonely and a bit inadequate, is fire-extinguisher 'No 1'
If there was ever a 'No 2' we never saw it.
And scrawled across the board itself is the last thing anyone ever wrote on it (in actual fact, I wrote it myself).
The closure of ERF's Service Centre went unremarked and unnoticed by many (including, it seemed to us, many at ERF), but it was the beginning of the end for the company.
And that valedictory message, scrawled in marker pen across our almost completely unnecessary noticeboard on the day the final closure of ERF Middlewich was announced, marks the moment when we realised that things would never be the same again.

SEE ALSO: ERF SERVICE 1971-2000

MIDDLEWICH CLEAN TEAM IN THE DAILY MAIL

Photo: Robin Bell/Daily Mail 2012

Here's a link to an excellent article in the Daily Mail about the work of the Middlewich Clean Team and how it has inspired similar organisations all over the country.
Well-deserved recognition for the people who have helped  transform our  town into an attractive and litter-free place to live.

THE MAIL ONLINE: THE TOWN THAT WENT TO WAR ON LITTER

SEE ALSO: MIDDLEWICH CLEAN TEAM LINK

THE FIRST MIDDLEWICH DIARY PUB QUIZ!

At

THE BOAR'S HEAD HOTEL

KINDERTON STREET, MIDDLEWICH

on

THURSDAY 14th JUNE at 8.30pm

The Middlewich Diary celebrates its first birthday in June this year and we've decided to mark the occasion by presenting the first in a series of occasional pub quizzes.

The rounds for the first quiz will be:

1 GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
   The staple stuff of all pub quizzes. Questions could be on any subject under the sun. If your knowledge of   Middlewich is a bit sketchy, this could be your chance to gain points.


2 THE FAMOUS DEES DISCO MUSIC ROUND
    Test your knowledge of music of ALL kinds; pop, classical, easy-listening, oldies, rock, everything.
    All culled from  forty years experience in music. Another chance to stock up on points
 

3 MIDDLEWICH, PAST & PRESENT
    All about Middlewich, past and present. Nothing too difficult, though. All the answers can be found either in the local press or on the Middlewich Diary.
 

4 CALL MY BLUFF (based on the popular TV panel game)
   Always a popular round. Pit your wits against Mr Roberts, who'll be giving you three very plausible explanations of the meaning of obscure words. All you have to do is find the correct one.
 

There will also be a picture round featuring pictures of Middlewich compiled by CLIFF ASTLES.

The first quiz  will be in aid of the
WATER AID charity.

We'll also be asking people to donate suitable prizes both for the quiz and associated raffle.

Future quizzes in the series will raise money for other charities, local, national and international.

Questions and photographs used in each quiz will also feature on A Middlewich Diary after the event so that everyone can join in.

If you're interested in entering a team and/or  donating prizes please contact

PETER COX

at

gorsley@talktalk.net

SEE ALSO: GENESIS OF A CHARITY PUB QUIZ

HARRY JACKSON AT A WHISTON'S FUNCTION

by Dave Roberts
We're grateful to Stuart Warren Twigg who sent us this photograph of an unspecified celebration from many years ago (such events were always called 'functions' in those days, and the name survives to the present day in one or two local pubs who still advertise the presence of a 'function room' on the premises).
The photograph features Stuart's grandfather, Harry Jackson (seated, left), who we last saw here, and was taken some time in the 1950s (Stuart thinks it may be later - see Facebook Feedback, below - and he may well be right. There's something a bit 60s-ish about the way the men are dressed) at what we think was a 'works do' for employees of Whiston's Garage and Radio & TV shop, situated where Nantwich Road, Chester Road and Wheelock Street all meet.
In his covering 'note' Stuart also mentions Albert Atkinson who, I think, worked in Whiston's Radio & TV dept.
Certainly he later ran his own electrical repair business in a small shop adjacent to Douglas Williams & Co (where Harry Jackson was in charge) at the top end of Wheelock Street.
Albert was also a town councillor during the same period.
I think that's Albert standing up on the right of the picture
So Stuart and I are wondering if Middlewich Diary readers can put names to the other faces.
As always on the Middlewich Diary, we're also open to corrections and amendments.

Facebook feedback:

Stuart Warren Twigg  Hi Dave. A very young Albert is indeed top right, and Mr Sid Whiston is sat next to Harry. I think that the 'function' is at the old ICI club and is possibly circa 1965, which ties in with Grandad's 25 years service at Whiston's, but that, sadly, is where my knowledge ends, though my sister thinks that a Jean Royle may be the lady front and centre?

Editor's note: The ICI Club which served the ICI Works in Brooks Lane, and continued after the works closed in 1962 before becoming Pochin's Club in the early 1970s, is now home to Middlewich Community Church

Geraldine Williams That's Mrs Whiston seated next to Sid and the man in the centre of the back row is Jack Bowers who was the foreman mechanic at Whiston's. Jean Royle certainly worked at Whiston's, but I wouldn't have recognised her in this photograph. I wonder what they were celebrating? Only Sid and his wife are wearing buttonholes......

Bill Eaton The person stood behind Harry Jackson is, I'm sure, Les Bowers, who went on to open his own garage in Lach Dennis