MYSTERY WOODS, WINTER 2011

Salt Town Productions

This is by nature of being an experiment. Our panoramic picture shows Mystery Wood(s) on December 17th 2011, as the first snowfall of the winter was melting away. Dead ahead along the tarmac path is the spot where Hayhurst Avenue becomes Brynlow Drive. Pathways to the left take us through the woods to emerge further along Hayhurst Avenue, and the path to the right takes us down to the play area where BMX bikers show off their skills and generations of children have made makeshift rope swings.

To appreciate the picture fully, you need to enlarge it by double-clicking on it. I'd be interested to hear how it looks on other people's browsers.

MIDDLEWICH SCOUTS PASSING CHALLINOR'S SHOP, CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948

© Phillip Shales 2011 All rights reserved

by Dave Roberts

Here's the second of our photographs from the Phillip Shales collection, taken on Chairman's Sunday 1948, as the Middlewich Scouts begin to turn from Leadsmithy Street into Hightown on their way to take their places with the rest of Middlewich in St Michael & All Angels church.

When the photographer took this picture he would probably have had no regard at all for its background but to us, in the second decade of the 21st Century, it holds just as much interest as the Scouts in the middle distance.

It is of course, as the sign plainly informs us, Challinor's Newsagent's shop situated just at the spot where Leadsmithy Street becomes Lewin Street.

As this is a Sunday, and an old-fashioned Sunday at that, the shop is firmly closed, but the signs on the front speak elequently of their time: PLAYERS PLEASE and GOLD FLAKE bear testimony to the then almost universal habit of smoking at every available opportunity. My Mother often used to tell me that in her younger days people used to consider her 'peculiar' because she didn't smoke.
Also advertised is PICTURE POST a photo news magazine published from 1938 to 1957, which numbered among its contributors such distinguished writers as J B Priestley, James Cameron and Fyfe Robertson.

Photo: Museum of London

Next to the Picture Post ad is another ad, or inscription, which is almost impossible to make out in the shadows under the shop's sun blind.  It's very indistinct, but looks something like E HADER. Has anyone any ideas?  

The scouts themselves are very much of their time with, as Geraldine Williams points out, the original, classic, scout hats on their heads. Their leader, who is supervising them as they make the turn into Hightown, is everyone's idea of what a Scout Leader ought to look like.

But it's the shop itself which is a revelation. Who knew that there was a cottage tacked onto the end of it at one time? In actual fact, there does seem to be a difference in the brickwork between the cottage and the shop.

Could it have been that the cottage was built on the end of the shop, and then taken down again?

This photo, which shows the 2nd Middlewich Guides about to pass the shop (which by that time belonged to Les Gibbins) in the 1970s, shows the different brickwork at the end of the shop after the cottage had been demolished.

That shop, against all odds, is still with us today, but has been empty for many years.


UPDATE: I've been doing some twiddling with the relevant section of the photograph to see if I could tease out what that other advert (or inscription) might be.
The second word is definitely 'Magazine'. Would it be TRADER Magazine?
Anyone heard of it?

MIDDLEWICH SCOUTS IN LEADSMITHY STREET, CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948

© Phillip Shales 2011 All rights reserved

by Dave Roberts

Today we're pleased to be able to bring you a photograph from 1948 which we're sure not many people will have seen before. It comes from the collection of Middlewich photographer Phillip Shales, who was a keen collector of old Middlewich photographs and took many pictures of the town himself over the years. 

We're grateful, too, to Kerry Fletcher  of Middlewich Town Council for bringing these photos to our attention.

The picture above comes from a collection which was given to Phillip by the widow of the original photographer, complete with all the negatives, and it's a rare privilege for us to be able to share it with you. 

It shows the Middlewich Scouts marching down from their base at the Scout Hall in Brooks Lane on their way to join the rest of the people of the town for the Chairman's Sunday service at St Michael & All Angels in 1948.

This explains the uncommon sight of a procession using Kinderton Street. Before publishing this particular shot, we gave Geraldine Williams a preview of it, and this is what she had to say.

(Note that Geraldine's query about the unusual route of the procession was  answered by Phillip when I called to ask his permission to publish the photo. Geraldine's reference to the street lamps goes back to a couple of slides we published showing unusual swan-necked concrete lamps in Seabank and Lawrence Avenue. The ones in this photo,though, really are wonderful. Does anyone remember them?)


It certainly is an amazing pic. I hadn't realised the scouts were still wearing proper hats in 1948. Wonder what the event was and why they were marching down from Kinderton Street? I don't think it can have been a Civic Sunday service at St Mary's because I think Clarence Costello would have been the first Catholic chairman. The only other event for 1948 would have been the London Olympics! A local Middlewich character - Mrs something double-barrelled (maybe Cooper) - used to live in the house to the right of The Talbot. The lamp posts are very grand but seem to have lost their glass. Are they bigger than that one on Seabank? I've lost track of where that picture appeared in the Diary. I always thought that the public toilets on the Town Bridge were a comparatively recent structure so I was surprised to see them featuring on a 1948 photo. GW


The picture shows Leadsmithy Street as it was 63 years ago and yet, like so many parts of the town, it has changed so little as to be instantly recognisable. 
The main difference between the scene then and now is the loss of the buildings in Kinderton Street.

The Talbot Hotel was demolished as part of the Kinderton Street redevelopment in the 1970s, but the houses next door to it disappeared many years before that.

I certainly don't remember them, and I lived in King Street from the 1950s to the 1980s and used Kinderton Street almost every day.

They must have been pulled down not too long after this picture was taken.The little alley way between The Talbot and the houses was called 'Flag Alley' and led up some steps to a terrace of houses running at right angles to the pub. 

Note the wonderful 1940s vintage car. 'Middlewich Diary' readers are getting quite good at identifying the old cars which crop up occasionally, so I'm wondering if anyone knows what this is.

The earliest car I can recollect is the Ford Prefect which my Aunt Evelyn (Ridgway) drove in the 1950s. This car looks a bit similar, but I think the bonnet's slightly different.

Returning to the main photo, note the 'Just William' types watching the procession from the Churchyard on the left. About ten years later myself and my contemporaries were still dressed  in a remarkable similar fashion. 

If 'fashion' is the appropriate word.

OLD BUILDING BEHIND COSTELLO'S SHOP IN KINDERTON STREET 1974

by Dave Roberts
We're fortunate indeed that most of the colour slides I took in the late sixties and early seventies were taken using Kodachrome film. This legendary, and sadly now discontinued, film stock had a look and a feel all of its own which digital photographers of today would dearly love to recapture. In fact I undertstand that finding equipment which will come somewhere near to replicating Kodachrome is something of a Holy Grail for photographers who use colour.

As you will have gathered from looking at these slides I'm no photographer. Most of the slides I took, distinguishable from other people's slides by the square format, are 'middle distance' shots taken, from necessity, in fairly bright conditions with a Kodak Instamatic camera. I did have various push-on filters and a close up lens, but these were rarely used.

But it was the Kodachrome film which saved the day. As can be seen from the slide featured here it could produce pictures with astonishing detail and warm colours, even with a fairly nondescript camera.

The other advantage of this particular film, which I  never realised at the time, was its ability to resist fading. The above picture was taken 37 years ago, but could have been taken this morning . It's been given a little bit of a tweak by CanoScan software to take out some of the scratches but other than that it's just as it was when it was first taken.

We're looking here at an old building which was situated behind Costello's shop in Kinderton Street just before the whole row was demolished in 1974. As far as I can recall, there were similar buildings behind every property, stretching from Costello's to Pool Head Farm. Quite what the building was for, I'm not sure.

Such outbuildings are usually given the blanket term of 'stables' but this, I think, would be unlikely in this case. The passageway between the end of the shop and this building was very narrow and any horse would find it difficult to negotiate. And that old door, which looks to me like it's been there since the building was erected, doesn't look like a stable door. The 'upstairs' window must have been provided to bring light into the building, which, given that most of the row was given over to shops, was probably some kind of storeroom.

Whatever it was, it wasn't a 'privy'. This was tacked on to the end of the shop, as shown here. Dave Roberts

CLIFF'S CANNON BALL DISCOVERY

THE CANNON BALL - Photo: Cliff Astles

by Dave Roberts

Cliff Astles has lived in Middlewich for most of his life.
He is now retired and spends a great deal of his spare time working with Middlewich Town Council and  Cheshire East-CVS as a volunteer photographer for the local Mid Cheshire community, covering local events and activities and  providing quality digital photos for their future marketing, promotion, press articles  and web pages.

In 2010, while Cliff was working with Middlewich Town Council during the build-up to the Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival, and also taking pictures of local places of interest for the “Do YOU Know Middlewich?” competition, which would take place during the Festival, he found a cannonball, sitting on the surface of the soil on the banks of the Trent and Mersey canal, near its junction  with the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch.

The cannonball was  half in and half out of the ground, and  sitting on the top soil surface below some leylandi trees planted to form a boundary between Pochin's head office car park and the canal. 

The cannon ball was just under three inches in diameter and the top part, where  it had been out of the soil  for a time, was quite clean.  This may have been due  to its having been exposed for a short time when the trees were planted.

The bottom half was slightly pitted due, perhaps, to the chemicals in the soil, but was in very good condition considering how long it had been in the ground (Had in really been there since March 1643?).

Cliff takes up the story: 
'I had been taking photos for the competition and when I'd finished, I turned around to climb back up the canal  bank, which is quite steep at this point, to the line of leylandi trees, when I put my hand down to steady myself and placed it on top of the cannonball. 

Thinking it may have been a 'corky' cricket ball of the type used in my school days, I went to pull it from the soil, only to find it was not a corky ball, but a cannon ball! I was able to recognise it for what it was from my own visits to museums over the years.

I took it home,cleaned it  under the cold water tap, and later showed it to Kerry Fletcher, Middlewich Town Council's Heritage Officer. 

Kerry confirmed it was indeed a cannonball  and said she would need to have it properly authenticated by sending it to Chester Museum. This she did some time later.

It was quite exciting to find such an historic item, purely by luck, and just sitting there waiting to be found.
I decided to find out more about it, and why it was found where it was, and read up on the history of the Civil War as it affected Middlewich from a variety of sources, both local and via the Internet.

At one of the two Battles of Middlewich  two Royalist Cannons were set up behind a barricade, probably at the junction of Booth lane and Sutton Lane, to deter troops from entering the town via these two roads. 
From behind this barricade the Royalists fired at the Roundhead (Parliamentarian) troops advancing from Nantwich, which was at the time in the hands of the Roundhead army, to take Middlewich.

My understanding is that a cannon of the time ( circa 1643 )would only have a range of fire of some 300 yards (approximately 275 metres) from the cannon gun.
Therefore, my guess that the cannon ball I found was indeed fired from behind the barricade at the road junction  (the Cheshire Cheese pub stands there today, and may well have been there at that time as well ).

From additional material I have read, it would appear that either side of both roads were “sodden ground”, very wet and muddy, and  it is very probable that the cannonball would have been quite deeply buried when it landed, and thus had remained hidden for all those years.

But it's more likely that the cannon ball  remained hidden where it landed  until the canal era began and the new 'motorways of the eighteenth century' were constructed. The Trent & Mersey Canal was built in 1776 and it may have been that the cannon ball  was unearthed by the navvies then and deposited where it was on the banks of the canal, which are quite high at that point.

It was probably unearthed again and  deposited on the soil surface when the leylandii trees were planted by Pochins in the 1970s and lay there waiting to be discovered once more by me in April / May 2010.

I understand  that Kerry Fletcher and the  Middlewich Town Council, along with Middlewich Heritage Society, plan to have the cannon ball mounted so that it can be  displayed at Cheshire Heritage Exhibitions in the future. There may well be more civil war cannon balls to be found in the same area. For obvious reasons it's highly unlikely that this would be the only one,  but please remember that  permission must be sought from the Pochin Group, who now own this very important civil war battle ground if you should  wish to look for other such items.'
Story and photograph © Cliff Astles 2011

ORIGINAL STP LOGO - BOAR'S HEAD 1970s

This slide was taken in the early 70s from behind Costello's grocery shop on Kinderton Street looking towards Brooks Lane. It  was used, as can be seen, for the basis of the original Salt Town Productions logo. Unfortunately the original slide has been mislaid, so this version of the scene will have to suffice until it turns up.
On the right is, of course, the Boar's Head Hotel. In recent years this has been extended at the rear, in sympathetic style, so that those not in the know will assume it has been like that for many years.
To the rear of the pub is the substantial bulk of an old stable building at the end of the car park. It can be seen that the building is of sufficient height to seriously affect the light reaching the windows of the cottage behind it, making nonsense of the current owner's claim to be affected by the much lower Portacabin which is there now.
The Portacabin in question is used by the local pigeon club as their HQ, and supersedes an old converted railway wagon which was situated just inside the car park entrance.
The building to the left is Costello's shop and the roof, centre left, belongs to the 'privy' which once served the shop. Behind the shop were some old  buildings which we'll see in a later posting.
Finally, the chimneys in the background belong to Seddon's Salt Works on Brooks Lane which had closed a few years earlier.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ORIGINAL SLIDE (AND THE PRIVY) IN ALL ITS GLORY

THE BUTCHERED BUTCHER'S SHOP

All Rights Reserved. Unauthorised copying amd reproduction prohibited

by Dave Roberts
Our picture, taken by former Middlewich resident Daniel Preston during a trip back home in the winter of 1988/9, shows Vernon's butcher's shop on Hightown shortly after it closed its doors. The shop, formerly Fitton's, was in safe hands under E & G Vernon's ownership. They obviously recognised the unique qualities of this 1920s gem, going to the trouble of  engaging a sign-writer to produce the traditional sign (although the original Fitton's sign, which can just about be made out to the right of this photograph, was a little more ornate than the Vernon's version), and even replacing the glazed 'Fittons' sign above the door with one saying 'Vernons' (this can just be made out in the photograph).
Sadly, this was not the case once Vernons had vacated the premises. This shop was one of the first causes taken up by the Heritage Society, which had been formed by myself and Ian McQueen in 1985, and also, regrettably, one of our first failures.
The bone of contention was the rare Italian picture tiles adorning the walls of the shop, which would have looked very strange during the shop's rather  incongruous career as that symbol of the 1990s, a video rental shop. To be fair, those tiles would  have looked out of place in anything other than a butcher's shop (although, ironically, they might almost have fitted in with the shops current use as an Indian takeaway) but, we argued, all that was necessary was for them to be covered up, thus preserving them for the future.
It was not to be, and the priceless tiles were smashed.
Chris Koons, who worked in the shop during its Vernons days says, 'Just looking at these pictures, I can still smell the shop - it smelled like a combination of bleach and the rub we used on the pork ribs, along with a tinge of tobacco smoke & tea (we always had a pot on!).
Many local people have happy memories of Fittons/Vernons butchers shop. One feature which everyone seems to remember is the cashier's box at the back of the shop.

All rights reserved. No unauthorised copying or reproduction

Geraldine Williams says, 'when Sid Fitton had the shop there was a cashier in a little cubicle. The money was sent to her, and change returned, by an overhead pulley system'.
Chris Koons says, 'there was actually a little room back there and, in later days, it was where we sat and had coffee and lunch breaks. It brings back memories - not all of them pleasant. The guys in there used to throw knives just to scare you...you'd be working away cleaning out the bone bin, or breaking the fat off the kidneys, or whatever, and suddenly a knife would come whizzing past your head and stick in the door behind you!'
Daniel Preston, who took these pictures, says that his family sometimes used a different Middlewich butchers shop: 'We were more likely to go to Harold Mann's for our 12s 6d worth of roast beef for Sunday dinner. I bet you can't even feed the dog these days for 12s 6d.'
David Graham remembers working for Fittons as a butchers boy in the mid-sixties and Dawn Hunter says she used to go into the shop to buy tripe for her Nan's dog. Presumably for a lot less than 12s 6d..
Geraldine Williams thinks that the Fitton's butchers business went back quite a long way:
'We moved back to Middlewich in 1947 and my Mother always bought our meat from Fitton's. However, Sid was roughly the same age as my parents, so presumably his father had the business before him. Sid lived in a farm/smallholding just over the Station Bridge at Winsford, so maybe this supplied the meat.'
But, sadly, our memories of this one time show piece will always be tinged with sadness when we remember the fate of those splendid tiles.
Chris Koons: 'Those picture tiles were hand-painted antiques and  I couldn't believe it when we found out they'd been smashed. If I remember rightly, there was a bit of a hold up to the remodelling of the shop from a butchers  to a video store, while  the Heritage Society tried to save the tiles. Then, suddenly, all of them had been 'accidentally' smashed and the remodelling was back on track. Stupid, ignorant people'.
Stupid, ignorant people indeed.
I have one personal memory of Vernon's, which comes under the 'now it can be told' category and  must date back to the shop's final days, just before it closed at the end of the eighties.
The Sunday trading laws were very strict then. In fact there wasn't any Sunday trading. But, just before Christmas, Vernon's would  let it be known that they were taking orders for meat for the festive season.
Everyone, including us, would place our orders and pick them up from the side door of the shop on the Sunday before Christmas in a very hush-hush black market operation which was one of the worst-kept 'secrets' in Middlewich at that time.

LOST GLORIES: SOME OF THE  ITALIAN TILES PICTURED BY DANIEL IN 1988

The shop is now occupied by the Balti Spice Takeaway and the frontage is covered in cheap wooden cladding. This does look slightly better than it did under previous ownership, when it was painted green and red and was forever falling off, but it looks like a codge-up all the same.

Faded Glory: The Balti Spice Take Away in December 2011.
 Note, to the right, the NatWest Bank which has now closed, leaving Middlewich with
just one bank. Another sign of the times.

As far as I know, the original tiling is still there, under all that wooden nonsense and it would surely be a reasonably simple matter to remove the tiles which say 'MEAT PURVEYORS'* and replace them with plain ones (keeping the originals for possible future use) or even ones that say BALTI SPICE in the original style.
I'm not sure just how easy that would be.
Perhaps a piece of glass for over the door with BALTI SPICE on it in the old style?
Then this sadly abused building could  be brought back to something approaching its former magnificence, externally at least.
Unfortunately the world doesn't work like that and the restoration of this once beautiful building will, in all likelihood, remain  just a dream.
But this shop is as much a symbol of our town as the Parish Church and those long gone salt works chimneys. There's one more feature which makes it fit in so well with its surroundings (when it's given a chance) and that's the  Bull's Head in the very top centre of that wonderfully ornate frontage, forever gazing down on that part of Middlewich which has always been known as The Bull Ring.

*P.S. Andrew Tomlinson has reminded us of something which was a minor Middlewich legend at one time.
The 'S'  tile in the right hand 'MEAT PURVEYORS' inscription was (and presumably still is under all that wooden cladding) upside down:

WHEELOCK STREET, CARNIVAL DAY 1973

In the bright sunshine of a long-ago Summers day Wheelock Street waits for the 1973 Carnival procession to arrive. This Kodachrome slide is the companion to this one which was taken  the evening before. The general air of expectancy seems to indicate that the procession, on its epic journey from the Big Lock to Sutton Lane, was due at any moment.
Note the yellow and red Middlewich Caledonian Society flag a little way down the road on the left which is mentioned in the description for that companion slide..
At this time Middlewich was just beginning to change from the drab but workmanlike town it had always been into the brighter, more welcoming town it is today - a change brought about by the closure of the salt works in the middle of the town and the concentration of  the industry on the new British Salt works in Cledford Lane..
An early venture into the restaurant business for one local businessman can be seen in the companion slide, also a little way down the road but on the right, in the form of the Kings Mexon, a name derived, slightly confusingly, from an old name for The Bullring. The businessman in question was Steve Wells, who later ran a newsagent and record shop just a little further still down the road. A certain Mr David Gareth Roberts provided 'background music' for the restaurant using those new-fangled compact cassette tapes.
Contrary to popular belief  Middlewich Carnival, which was organised by Middlewich & District Round Table, was not replaced by the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival in 1990. Both events took place that year and in 1991. The spirit of the carnival lives on in the new Middlewich FAB Festival which combines the best of both the Carnival and the original Folk Festival.
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Daniel Preston

I remember what I was doing on that day. Me and an old mate of mine, who now lives in Toronto, were working on my Morris Mini Cooper in my garage on the I.C.I. garage site. The garage site was in Brooks Lane just over the bridge, which I am sure many of you know. Anyway, there we were, fettlin' the car up, when we heard the big bass drums coming up Lewin Street. Quick as a flash, we downed tools (a popular pastime in those days) and ran to the wall overlooking the canal. Up on the wall we clambered (being both young fellows at the time) and wetched th' carnival from that vantage point. Ah, yes, it was a grand day, no doubt about that.