A MYSTERIOUS MIDDLEWICH INSCRIPTION

by Dave Roberts
Well there's nothing mysterious about the inscription itself. It's a simple rendering of the name A GALLAGHER made with a penkife or some other pointed metal object a good few years ago from the look of it.

 It can be found (just) within the Middlewich Town boundary, but not in the town itself.

 The name is inscribed on a very hard stone, one of many in the vicinity, and must have taken quite a bit of painstaking work over quite a long time.

I've seen this many many times over the years, and it must have been seen also by many people walking their dogs or just taking a stroll, or even making use of an old but still popular form of transport..

It will have been seen in its time by many working people as well as thousands of leisure seekers.

Could the A GALLAGHER commemorated here be Albert Gallagher?

Our simple question is - where is it?

A RELIC OF MIDDLEWICH'S FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH

A familiar sight to parishioners of St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in New King Street is this old cross, originally from the town's first Catholic Church and School in Wych House Lane, as featured in a recent diary entry by Malcolm Hough.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN WYCH HOUSE LANE

The cross, which dates back to the 1860s, was placed in the porch at St Mary's as a reminder of the Church's early days in Middlewich.

An explanatory plaque tells of the origins of the cross:

"This cross stood above the High Altar of the old School - Chapel in Wych House Lane. It is placed here to remind you to pray for the souls of the pioneer priests and parishioners of Middlewich"

KINDERTON STREET - TWO ALTERNATIVES

We've been considering this early 20th Century Kinderton Street scene a lot lately, particularly since an alternative to our original interpretation of it in this diary entry was put forward. Thus we now have two contenders for the site of this picturesque thatched building and we bring you present day views of both to enable you to make up your mind.

This was our original suggestion; that the old postcard shows Seabank running off down to the River Croco and the Trent & Mersey Canal to the left of the picture with the present-day Kinderton Hotel on the extreme left. The thatched building would have been somewhere in the region of the shrubbery separating the car park from the main road.

The alternative suggestion was that the scene showed Mill Lane, just off Town Bridge, and that the thatched building was approximately where the bungalow, part of which can be seen in this April 2013 shot, is now.
This would mean, assuming that the original picture was taken prior to 1931, that the building on the extreme left was the old Navigation Inn which stood immediately next to the old Town Bridge, somewhere near the location of this fine display of blossom in the long-delayed 2013 Spring sunshine..

What do you think?

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN WYCH HOUSE LANE

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN WYCH HOUSE LANE

by Malcolm Hough

(adapted from an article originally published in the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter)

This photograph of Wych House Lane in  Middlewich shows, on the right hand side, the cottages (nos  9 to 11) which were built some 300 years ago on the top of the bank of the River Croco. This was before the Trent & Mersey Canal was cut in 1777.  In 1979 these cottages were converted into one house (the 'House of Feathers' -Ed)  .

The building in the centre of the picture is Middlewich's original Catholic Church.

Ken Sumner, who supplied me with the photograph and some of the information, told me that his Great Grandmother Elizabeth Dunning was born in what is now number 11 in in 1850. Elizabeth is shown as a one year old in the 1851 census.

The gap between the houses and the chapel is where numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7 stood.

Nos 1, 3, 5 and 7 Wych House Lane

In 1851 the houses in Wych House Lane do not appear to have had numbers, so this gave me a fixing point for the route that the census enumerator travelled on that day, 162 years ago.
He came from Leadsmithy Street, close to St Michael's Church, via the Town Wharf and along the canal towpath, past the Robin Hood public house on the corner of Wych House Lane and then up the lane, past the salt works cottage (number 13, now demolished and then to numbers 11 and 9.
I have come to the conclusion that numbers 1 to 7 had not been built by 1851(this is only an assumption, and I have no proof), but they certainly were there ten years later and were covered in the 1861 census.
As mentioned above, the building in the centre of the main picture was the first Catholic Chapel in Middlewich, which was built in 1864. The town's first Catholic School was added in 1869.
The building behind the chapel with the unusual tower is the Wesleyan Chapel, and the roof to its left is the Centenary Sunday School in Lewin Street. This photograph dates back to the 1960s.
© Malcolm Hough 2013. Reproduced with permission.

We're very grateful to Malcolm, who is the brother-in-law of John Andersen of Andersen Boats and still lives in Wych House Lane, for this fascinating article, which solves another of our Middlewich Diary mysteries, first considered in July 2011 when we published this colour slide:

In this diary entry  we formed the opinion that the furthest building from the camera in this shot was too 'gimcrack and jerry-built' looking to ever have been a church, an opinion now proved way off course by Malcolm's excellent article

There's little real doubt now that the two buildings are one and the same and that Middlewich's first Catholic Church ended up as a ramshackle and tumble down part of  Seddon's waggon repair works, tacked on to the typical salt works buildings nearer the camera.

I did say in that earlier post that I had some dim recollection of the building in question having some 'vaguely ecclesiastical' looking windows', but couldn't trust my memory on the subject.

It seems that I should have.

Strange to think that this historic building was bulldozed and carted away along with the rest of the site's motley collection of brick and timber industrial sheds and workshops in the 1970s without, seemingly, anyone knowing, or caring, about its significance.

Unless, of course, someone knows otherwise. We'd be delighted to be proved wrong on this and shown that someone did care and took the trouble to at least make a proper record of this chapel before its destruction.

The modern Wych House Lane is still recognisable as the same thoroughfare, but is much altered.

 Here's a before and after feature showing the lane as it was in 1974 and 2011 and we'll be doing some more 'before and after' shots in the near future.- Ed

STANTHORNE MILL POOL

We believe this image to be out of copyright. If you own the copyright, or know who does, please let us know

Here's another Middlewich postcard which is new to us and supplied by Mike Jennings. As you can see, it's captioned 'Stanthorne Mill Pool', but appears to show a section of the River Wheelock with, on the right hand side, what might be a mill race - i.e. a stream of water taken from the river and carried off in a narrow channel to power a watermill. - in this case Stanthorne Mill.

The presence of Stanthorne Mill might also explain the existence of the weir immediately adjacent to the bridge which carries the footpath from Nantwich Road to Stanthorne. Was that there, partly at least, to increase the flow of the River Wheelock towards the Mill? The fact that the mill no longer functions as such could explain why the weir itself has been allowed to go to rack and ruin over a long period of time.

Or is this a more credible explanation of Mike's postcard? 

Is Mike's picture (photo 1) an earlier version of the scene shown in Jack Stanier's slide from the 1970s (photo 2)? The weir is indicated by a red arrow in each picture. Is that Mill Lane snaking down from top right to top centre, before the houses, such as 'Three Willows', between Nantwich Road and the river were built? Certainly the bridge over the weir is quite distinctive and its curved abutments (as seen in photo 3) might be discernible in both photos. This would mean that 'Stanthorne Mill Pool' was not actually at Stanthorne at all and that the weir, as we've suggested, was there to ensure a good and strong flow of water to the mill, several hundred yards away.

It is, of course, very difficult to make out the actual course of the River Wheelock in any photos taken since the first world war because of the profusion of trees along its banks.

Photo number 4 dates back to the 1960s when the area was not quite so overgrown and shows the 'mill pool' looking from the weir towards the Shropshire Union Canal Middlewich Branch which runs on its embankment behind the trees at the top of the picture.

(originally published 10th April 2013, revised 15th April 2013)

UPDATE (16th April):

Edward O'Hare writes: 

Hi Dave, my Mum and Dad have just confirmed your alternative theory as they both remember the small stream by the side of the river.

Also, the tree that is seen on the right hand river bank eventually grew right over the river, so that you could cross over from one side to the other without getting wet - most of the time!

(Edward is the son of Mike and Rita O'Hare, who live in Nantwich Road, close to the area shown in these photos. Many thanks to him and to Mike and Rita for confirming this for us - Ed)

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WHIT WEDNESDAY PROCESSION IN HIGHTOWN 1949

by Dave Roberts
Here's a photo from Mike Jennings, who tells us that his mother knows the names of everyone pictured in this Whit Wednesday walk in Hightown in the early 1950s.
It took us a while to arrive at a proper description for this photograph. At first we thought it might have been a May Day procession (and my description, when the Facebook link was created for this entry talked of a 'maypole', largely because of the ribbons; it reminded me of the maypole we had a Wimboldsley school in the 1950s which I myself used to dance expertly around, if anyone can imagine me doing such a thing), but the obvious religious flavour of the occasion made us think again, particularly when Geraldine Williams said, 'Is it definitely a May Day procession? It's obviously a church group (check the surplice on the fellow holding up the pole); and it's a bit short for a maypole - he would be in great danger of strangulation once the dance got going unless there's an extension somewhere! And is it my imagination or had they caught the short straw in the order of procession and were following a horse-drawn vehicle (judging by the state of the road!)'
Geraldine also had some ideas on who some of the people in the picture might be: 'I think I recognise the tall girl in the centre, who has allowed the compulsory hair ribbon with bow to slip down to a more flattering position! I also think I know the second girl from the left, but I'll await Mrs Jennings' verdict.'
Cliff Astles also recognised at least one of the people in the picture: 'One of them, for sure, is my wife Barbara Elaine Astles, nee Evans of 6 Cross Lane. She is on the far left of the picture'.
Barbara added, 'It was a St Michael's Church event and took place every Whitsuntide. We would walk from the church along Wheelock Street, stopping a number of times to perform a maypole dance - winding in and out of the ribbons. I can't remember if we went back to the church, but there were always crowds of people watching the procession as we went along Wheelock Street'.
The setting will, of course, be familiar by now to even the newest Middlewich newcomer, partly because it's still very recognisable with Fitton's butcher's shop and the Natwest Bank (then known by the rather more dignified title of the 'Westminster Bank' and soon to be just a memory) to the right.
Finally, Mike Jennings got back in touch to say: 'Hi Dave, I've just checked the original photo of the "May Day Parade". It was sent as a letter to my mother who was serving with the ATS in Singapore at the time. The information on it confirms that it was 'The Whit Wednesday Walk 1949'.
We'll be re-publishing this entry soon with Mrs Jennings information about the people in the picture, along with some additional photos of other Whitsun walks in Middlewich which have come to light..

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