THE VENABLES SCREENS RESTORATION PROJECT

Middlewich Heritage Trust

Direct email link:

heritage@middlewich.org.uk

FREE PUBLICITY!

Our 'NOTICE BOARD items are now featured on a dedicated Facebook group, which can be accessed by clicking HERE. Please feel free to post your items there and we'll share them throughout our network of MD Groups and groups associated with us. Selected items will also appear in the right hand column of the Diary itself. Alternatively, you can still email us at middlewichdiary@aol.com and we'll do it for you!

FAB FESTIVAL 2017 PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

See the FAB FESTIVAL'S Promotional Video here....

....or watch it on YOUTUBE....

FAB FESTIVAL 17 VIDEO

MID-CHESHIRE RAIL LINK CAMPAIGN - NOTICE OF MEETING

NEXT MEETING:

TUESDAY 30th MAY 2017

8pm AT THE BOAR'S HEAD

MID-CHESHIRE RAIL LINK CAMPAIGN
ON FACEBOOK

Published 02/12/2016,31/01/2017, 28/03/2017

MUSIC IN MIDDLEWICH: 80s NIGHT AT MIDDLEWICH RBL CLUB APRIL 2017

Please note that although tickets are free, you do need to have one! Call in at the club or call Jackie on the number on the poster!

WHAT'S ON GUIDE 2017

Every year the Middlewich Town Council produces its guide to the many and varied events happening in the town throughout the year.

The 2017 guide is out now and is being distributed door to door. 

Copies are also available from the Town Hall and from shops and other venues around the town.

Find out more about EVERYTHING happening in Middlewich this year. Pick up YOUR copy NOW!

SCRIBE - MIDDLEWICH LITERARY FESTIVAL 2017 (ARCHIVED)

SCRIBE LITERARY FESTIVAL
(Newsfeed)

SCRIBE LITERARY FESTIVAL

(Website)

SCRIBE FESTIVAL IS LIVE!
(Local author Catherine Green's blog)

Courtesy of CATHERINE GREEN

First published 20th January 2017

re-published 2nd March 2017, 23rd March 2017

NOW & THEN: CHALLINOR'S/GIBBINS' NEWSAGENTS

Whenever this celebrated newsagents shop crops up in the Middlewich Diary we always seem to express surprise that it still exists. But it does - largely due, we suspect, to the existence of the flats associated with it and accessed from the rear.
We've discussed the shop in previous entries, notably, of course, in this one in which we first saw that fascinating 1948 shot.

 Now, for the first time, we can make a direct comparison between the shop as it was in Challinor's day and as it is now.
The most obvious difference, of course, is the loss of the tiny cottage tacked onto the left hand side of the shop. Before everything was covered with  white rendering it was possible to see signs of the building's truncation in the bricks on the left hand side. 

This is clearly visible in the photo below, a full description of which can be found here 

Second Middlewich Guides 1972

On the right hand side, one of the shop windows has  gone; bricked up and with just a small window in its place for ventilation.
As if to make up for this, there's an additional upstairs window where the shop sign once was. This is a fairly new addition, possibly installed to provide more light for one of the upstairs flats.
The low building to the left of the shop has gone, to be replaced by Lex House, once home of Doctors* and Solicitors. Note that there is still a chimney sticking up above the roof of that building, presumably in connection with some modern central heating equipment.
It's interesting to note that there is still Victorian style scrolled decoration on either side of the shop, but close inspection reveals that it is different in each photograph; the 2012 version seems to be longer and slightly more elaborate than its 1948 counterpart.
As mentioned in previous entries, this shop was once the premises of J&M Print, after that firm moved from the basement of the Civic Hall, but, as far as we know, the  'shop' part of the premises is unused at present.

* In 2017 the doctors, at least, were back and  occupying  the whole building

UPDATE: 22nd March 2017:

And that was the way things were up until 2012. The problem, of course, with 'Now & Then' features is that 'Now' is a moveable feast. Fortunately, working on the internet enable us to update these diary entries with relative ease, and we're able to show you how things  have changed over the last five years.

Here's our updated photo of the area, taken on the 22nd March 2017:

And straightaway we can see that the old shop premises, now occupied by Peter Forshaw Funeral Services, have been altered yet again to suit their new role. To the left 'Lex House' has become the Water's Edge Doctors' Surgery, and to the right, where the old Infants' School, the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and the Wych House Lane Salt Works and its attendant workshops once were, is the Salinae Centre, set in its own gardens.

First published 21st March 2012.
Revised and update 22nd March 2017