SEDDON'S BROOKS LANE 1974

Today we're back in the Brooks Lane of 1974.
Seven years after it closed down, quite a large proportion of Seddon's Brooks Lane Works is still standing, including that chimney on the left of the picture which we last saw here.

In fact, as we've had occasion to mention before, the Brooks Lane works, unlike all the other works still operating in Middlewich at the end of open pan production in 1967, never really disappeared completely and remnants of it are still discernible in Brooks Lane today as newer industries such as Tarmac Readycrete have opened in the shell of the former salt works.

Pleasingly, one computer firm we (almost) had dealings with earlier this year gives its address as 'The Old Salt Works, Brooks Lane, Middlewich'.

On the extreme left of the slide, next to the chimney, is the corner of Seddon's railway wagon repair shop - often mistaken for a railway engine shed, which it closely resembles - which has, against all odds, survived to the present day, albeit in a derelict condition.

On the other side of the chimney the dilapidated roof of one of the salt pans, with many of its roof panels missing, can be seen.

To the right are the two buildings, with their distinctive black tarred roofs, fronting onto Brooks Lane, which  are also evident in this slide from a few years earlier.

Beyond the grassy bank in the middle of the picture the River Croco makes its semi-subterranean way into Middlewich, running through tunnels under the road to meet the Trent & Mersey Canal at the lower of the three Brooks Lane locks, where it continues to flow through the town,confined in its channel alongside the canal, until it runs into the River Dane at the bottom  of Harbutt's Field.

The square structure in the foreground is part of a  railway  bridge.
We're actually standing on the public footpath which runs from Brooks Lane, under the railway and alongside the access road to the sewage works ('Prosperity Way'), to join the 'Middlewich Eastern Bypass' on Midpoint 18, shortly before that road gives up the struggle and  runs out of steam in the middle of a field.

It's interesting to note that this slide was taken from a point  just a few yards away from a suggested site for  the platform of the proposed new Middlewich Station.
When the new station is built, who knows what the future holds for this part of town?

That new Network Rail radio mast is on the embankment just behind the camera.

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Martin Gardener: When my Mum and Dad moved to Middlewich in the early 1960s my Dad was fascinated by the salt pans on Brooks Lane

RAVENSCROFT COTTAGES

 A familiar sight to travellers from Middlewich to Northwich along King Street, Ravenscroft Cottages were built in the mid-to-late nineteenth century to house workers on the estate belonging to Ravenscroft Hall, which  lies a distance away behind the trees in the background, overlooking the River Dane (the bridge carrying King Street over that River is behind the camera at the bottom of the hill).
These cottages should not be confused with the Lodge at the end of the driveway to the Hall, which is at the top of the hill.
King Street is, of course, much busier these days but most of its current traffic in the Northwich direction comes via Centurion Way and the Holmes Chapel Road roundabout, rather than the traditional way from Middlewich Town Centre via Kinderton Street.
Centurion Way and the section of King Street between the Dane Bridge and the Croxton Lane Junction currently form the B5309.
King Street becomes the A530 after it is joined by Croxton Lane further north.
All of which was very far in the future when this group of children took their leisurely stroll down the hill back in the days of Queen Victoria.

WORKING AT THE WOODLANDS by Carol Jennings

Editors Note: Following on from our Middlewich Diary entry on The Woodlands, Middlewich Diary contributor Mike Jennings e-mailed us with this account of working there in the 1970s, written by his wife Carol.

From what Carol says in her article, it's quite feasible that this photograph of  The Woodlands was actually taken in the early 70s, at around the time she worked there, rather than in the 1960s. Many thanks to Carol for her memories and to Mike (Jake) for sending them to us. - Dave Roberts

WORKING AT THE WOODLANDS

by Carol Jennings

I remember this garage very well.

I worked there for a year in 1973-74 when I was 17. I used to work at ERF during the day and then work three or four evenings a week - from 6pm to 10.30pm - at the petrol station for extra cash to pay for driving lessons.

Jelliman's did own it in the late 60s - early 70s but, after the death of Mr Jelliman, his wife sold the garage to a Jewish man called Mr Radivan from Manchester. He owned a few petrol stations, by all accounts.

Mrs Jelliman managed the place on a day-to-day basis for him, along with another lady whose name I don't recall. I do know that she lived on Newton Heath.

They showed me the ropes (or the pumps).

In those days there were no self-service pumps. You pulled up and waited for the petrol pump attendant (me) to come out and fuel your car.

I recall sitting in the little wooden hut between the six pumps with a small paraffin heater for warmth, but still it was cold and draughty.

I read countless books waiting between customers.

You have to remember that in those days there was nowhere to go - no late night shops.

You might get a few filling up on their way to or from Leighton Hospital, or going to work on nights.

I think it may have been the only late-opening petrol station in the area. There were no supermarkets with petrol stations then.

Looking back, it was quite lonely.

I'd cash up on my own and a lady from across the road would come and take the money for safe keeping until Mrs Jelliman opened up the next day.

In the 1970s the big house -'The Woodlands' - was unoccupied, with just one room at the front used as an office during the day.

But late at night it was dark and lifeless and spooky.

I was always glad when my boyfriend, now my husband Jake, came to pick me up.

And yes we were still giving Green Shield stamps in the 1970s too.

Twenty-thousand stamps, or twenty books, got you a torch - something like that.

Petrol was 37p per gallon.

It was 1973, the year of the oil crisis. Petrol rationing was in force and cars queued for miles for fuel.

Black Gold...still the same issues. Still a high price.

CROXTON WATER FALL 2

Image compiled by JOHN CAPPER

Following on from our deliberations on Croxton Water Fall and the actual position of the original Croxton Hall Farm, John Capper writes:

Hi Dave, The Croxton Hall post has quite intrigued me. I managed to find a map from 1898 and overlaid it on Google Earth. You can see the Hall was on the flat area behind the trees. I thought you might like to see this.


Many thanks to John for putting this image together. We've marked the position of Croxton Weir (or 'Croxton Water Fall')  with an X.
The Old Hall (if that is the building shown in the photograph), while not as far away from the river as the present farm, still looks a little too distant.

This, of course, may be the 'foreshortening' effect  we keep mentioning, caused by the type of lens used by the cameraman.
John's diagram also shows the course of the mill race running down from the River Dane and under Croxton Lane to serve the Flint Mill which stood where the river and the Trent & Mersey Canal cross at Croxton Aqueduct.
Jim Moores has recently been down to the area and taken some photos of the Croxton Water Fall as it is today:

Note that Jim's picture shows part of the retaining wall on the opposite bank of the river. The problem is that it doesn't look like the wall in the original photograph, possibly due to subsequent re-building.
In recent photographs, and indeed when glimpsed in real-life from the Croxton Lane bridge, the 'water fall' does not appear as deep as it does in the old photo. In this case we can't blame any differences in perspective: that 'Water Fall' has physically changed in the intervening years, and the water level in the lower part of the river appears to be much higher than it used to be. Is that sloping part of the weir, which probably inspired someone to call it a 'water fall' in the first place, still there under the water?.
Here's a comparison of the original photo with a recent one taken by Jim, illustrating how anyone could be forgiven for not recognising the 'water fall' immediately from that old picture post-card:

Now and Then: Can this really be the same place?

SEE ALSO:
                       
                    CROXTON FLINT MILL
                    CANALS AND RIVERS OF MIDDLEWICH

NOW & THEN: MANOR LODGE 1974 and 2011

(ORIGINAL DATE FOR THIS DIARY ENTRY: 20/12/2011)

In this posting we published a slide of Manor Lodge, close to the aqueduct in Nantwich Road, and blithely threw out the opinion that 'nothing much' had changed. Which, of course, teaches us yet again not to try to rely on memory alone. The Manor Lodge building has in fact changed radically since 1974, as can be seen from these comparison pictures.
At least some of the transformation has been brought about by local building firm Hough Construction, as this series of photographs from one of their publicity handouts shows us.

Photos: Hough Construction UK Ltd

Which reminds us of another point about local conservation, preservation and restoration. Renovation of buildings doesn't just happen. Someone has to have plans drawn up and engage people to actually do the hard work. Hough Construction has been involved in many  projects locally in recent years, including restoration work on some of Middlewich's historic buildings, and the company's website has photographs of some of the work they have carried out.

HOUGH CONSTRUCTION WEBSITE

UPDATE: 10th January 2012:
There appears to have been some sort of mishap at Manor Lodge. The stone gatepost which had been painstakingly put back together has been knocked over, and this time the ball on the top has sheared in half. The window behind it (seen on the bottom most Hough Construction photo above) is boarded up, and the corner of the roof has been damaged. It looks as though a large vehicle has either run into or backed into the driveway and gone out of control. Does anyone know what happened? -Ed


UPDATE: 11th January 2012:
Well who better to tell us than the owner of the property, Ewan Macdonald, who posted the following on our Middlewich Diary Facebook Group page:


'A car hit the gatepost at high speed. Knocked one of the blocks up into the roof, damaging eaves, while another block went straight throught the front window. Happened late Boxing Night while we were away. Hopefully Patrick will be able to fix it!'


We're very grateful to Ewan for taking the time and trouble to tell us what happened. Here's a set of recent photos for those who like puzzles. See if you can figure out how it all goes back together...-Ed

CLUE: This is what it's supposed to look like........

SEE ALSO: MANOR LODGE EARLY 20th CENTURY


UPDATE (29th February 2012):


We're grateful to Ewan Macdonald for supplying this photo of the brand new gatepost at Manor Lodge:

As Ewan himself says, let's hope it stays vertical for a few years now!

SEDDON'S OFFICES PEPPER STREET 1920s

When Hentry Seddon & Sons Ltd issued the brochure from which the above illustration of the firm's Pepper Street offices is taken, they were obviously keen to make an impact as a modern, go-ahead company in the spirit of the age.

Hence the somewhat stylised depiction of the Middlewich HQ seen here with the very latest in road vehicles parked outside, giving an impression of dynamic but quiet efficiency.

Most of the photographs we use on A Middlewich Diary are very little altered before publication; sometimes we increase the contrast or alter the colouring slightly to make them a little clearer, but mostly they're pretty much as they always were.

This is not the case with this particular photograph.

The original was graced with blue spot colour in an attempt to give the impression of those perennial clear blue skies which everyone likes to think were once common over Middlewich.

We've rendered the whole thing into black and white to make it look a little more natural.

Once again, as with other photos in the brochure in question, the art of the re-toucher is much in evidence, particularly on either side of the main building. This was obviously done to make the office block itself stand out from its surroundings. So why, then, was the row of houses on the left included in the picture?  (those houses, incidentally, still exist and are now the whole extent of modern day Pepper Street - one of them is the house in which our old friend Sherry Hill Smith once lived)

We're wondering if it's because it would have been too difficult to preserve the outline of the motor lorry on the left?

Incidentally, as we've mentioned before, re-touching of photographs was very common in this era. Many people considered photographs to be almost akin to paintings, and the 'artistic license' afforded to painters - who often painted what they would have liked to have been in a scene, rather than what they were actually looking at - was extended to professional photographers too. The problem in many cases was that the methods used were crude, and they were often clumsily executed.

We're wondering if the SE DD ON lettering in the windows was placed there especially for the photograph? It just doesn't look very convincing somehow.

Or was it another little touch added during processing by the re-toucher?
And why has one of the windows, top centre, been blacked out?

But, in any case, the whole attempt at portraying businesslike, thrusting modernity is marred somewhat by some feckless member of the lower orders leaving his bike propped up in the open doorway.

The re-toucher doesn't seem to have noticed.

You can see these offices as they were after the works closed  here . Note that in the later view  of the office building (from the 1970s), that upper central window has been considerably altered.


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Geraldine Williams: This pic shows off perfectly the godsend side wall (not a window in sight) where we local girls honed our twosie-and-threesie tennis ball skills most evenings during the Summer.

FILLING SALT SACKS AT MURGATROYD's 1960s

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

A photograph which is fairly self-explanatory. The lady shown here, and the worker behind her (presumably another lady) are filling sacks with salt by the simple expedient of opening a hatch in the salt store and letting the free-running salt flow into them.
The photo was taken, according to the information we have sometime in the 1960s and certainly before 1966 when the works closed.

By this time women had, through the introduction of various Factory Acts and other legislation, long been banned from working in the arduous salt making process itself, but many of them were employed in jobs such as this, and also in stitching and check-weighing the sacks before despatch. 

Others spent their working hours packing batches of boxed table salt or in loading boats, lorries and railway wagons. Still very hard work

As can be seen from the photograph, the working conditions were very basic, and would never be tolerated these days.
There's a photograph on page 29 of Wych & Water (Middlewich Vision 2009) showing exactly the same process being carried on at one of the Seddon's works.
In the present day anyone travelling on the road from Middlewich to Sandbach - or travelling in a more leisurely way on the Trent & Mersey Canal -  can get a good view of the vast salt stockpile at British Salt where pallets full of bagged salt are loaded onto lorries for onward despatch. Occasionally you can see a dumper truck loading loose salt in the same location. This is not to be confused with the 'salt mountain' in a different part of the site which famously helped rescue the country's roads a few years ago during bad winter weather.

MIDDLEWICH LOCAL HERO AWARDS 2012

from the MIDDLEWICH TOWN COUNCIL website

www.middlewich.org.uk