A NEW ERA FOR MIDDLEWICH TOWN CENTRE, JUNE 2005

Photo: Dave Thompson, Middlewich Town Council

The start of a new era for Middlewich's town centre over the weekend of June 17th -19th 2005 as the  amphitheatre fills with townspeople and visitors for the  Folk & Boat Festival, the first festival to use the  facility after its completion in April of that year.

Our thanks to the Town Council's Events Manager, Dave Thompson, for supplying the photograph and information.

See also: NOW & THEN: HIGHTOWN 1972/2011
               NOW & THEN: THE BULLRING 1969/2011
               THE TOWN CENTRE AT FESTIVAL TIME

HIGHTOWN and THE KINGS ARMS 1970

This is Hightown in 1970, looking, on the face of it, not very different from the way it looks today. On the extreme right is what would, at that time, have been Hulme's Grocers, although there is little here to indicate that it is a thriving concern of any kind. The shop is now home to the Accord Clinic, whose owners can always be relied on to provide interesting themed window displays when ever there is a festival or special event going on in the town.

Next left is the Kings Arms, complete with the original black and white version of its very ornate sign, which was later repainted in Greenall Whitley corporate colours. The sign itself has now been replaced by a simpler design, although the elaborately scrolled bracket remains.. The pub itself was a simple 'boozer' until the 1990s when it was refurbished and extended, as noted here.

On the other side of Queen Street is no 28 Hightown, later to be the home of Harold Woodbine's radio, tv and electrical shop and now the Parish Church's 'Drop In Centre'.

Photo: St Michael & All Angels Church, Middlewich

In the centre of the (main) photo it can just be seen that the C of E Infants School and the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel are still standing in Lewin Street.

Hightown itself - that is to say the actual carriageway - has changed considerably since 1970. The roadway has been altered over the years to accommodate changes in traffic flow. In fact, surprisingly enough, in 1970 certain sections of the road were actually wider than they are today, and the pavements narrower. A rare 'win' for pedestrians.

Facebook Feedback (from the 'Middlewich Diary' Facebook Group):
Chris Koons I remember Harold Woodbine's shop being there. Every Sunday morning, Dad would stop to comb his hair looking at his reflection in Woodbine's window before we went into Church & as far as I can remember, that was pretty much all the way through the 70s & possibly into the 80s LOL


In an e-mail Dave Thompson commented: 

Yes- check-out the the Kings Arms` new, plastic windows they`ve fitted!!

The windows in question can be seen here - ed.

THE CORNER OF NANTWICH ROAD/NEWTON HEATH Late 60s

A 35mm slide, companion to this one, showing the other end of this now-vanished row in Nantwich Road. Jack Stanier, who took the colour slide, describes it as 'late 60s', though it may, possibly, be from slightly later, and was probably taken at the same time as the  'Lea's Passage' slide. The entrance to Lea's Passage, as seen in that earlier photo, is at the far end of the row. and in the right foreground we can see the junction of Nantwich Road and Newton Heath, along with Risley's corner shop, representative of many such shops dotted all around the town, which served Nantwich Road, Newton Heath and Newton Bank - in fact, the whole of what used to be called 'Newtonia'.

Facebook Feedback 

Kath AndBarry Walklate:

I was born at number 15 in that row. There were 8 of us all living in a two up two down and the loo was outside .We were the Wilkinson family .

Rose Hamlett 

I remember. And wasn't there a Polish man who lived up there? I remember going to your house with Molly.....

In an e-mail Dave Thompson commented:

We lived at No. 25 Nantwich Road and I recall Risley`s corner shop was full of sweets/pop and other numerous household essentials!

I also remember the huge cinema bill-boards (on Newton Bank) directly opposite these houses.

I`ll ask my dad to advise which one was no. 25. I`m sure it had a window on the left side of the door but it definitely wasn`t next door to the shop. That much I do know!!
Happy days!

MR MICHAEL PARSONS AND MR ANTHONY HATTON SHARE A JOKE

Our exclusive picture shows future Town and Borough Councillor Mike Parsons sharing a joke with Tony Hatton, then proprietor of the Big Lock pub, sometime in the early 1990s.
Although Mike was one of the organisers of the Folk & Boat Festival, and Tony one of its keenest supporters at this time, the photograph was actually taken on a different occasion, at the Annual Boat Pull organised by the Trent & Mersey Canal Society.
Mr Parsons is sporting an example of the second version of the MFAB sweatshirt. The original design, produced for the first festival in June 1990, was similar, but had the wording Middlewich 1st Folk & Boat Festival with the festival dates underneath. The 'Middlewich' and '1st' should, arguably, have been the other way around.
Original examples are now much sought after collectors' items.
Our slightly tongue-in-cheek title is an oblique reference to the Cheshire Life which always labelled photographs of our betters, clutching glasses of champagne and laughing uproariously, with such captions as Lord Weaverham shares a joke with Lady Cholmondeley-Twissington-Smythe during the Wilmslow and District Asparagus Growers Annual Dinner Dance at The Grosvenor Hotel in Chester.
We do not move in such circles, so this is the best we can offer.
Facebook feedback:

• Bernice Walmsley Priceless!
  

  
  
  
  

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    Stephen Dent Strange really - I recognised Tony straight away but Mike looks very different.
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OLD NELL - A TALE FROM 1834

Editor's Note: When I was editor of the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter from the mid-80s to the late 90s, I commissioned my old friend and former schoolteacher John Brunker to write several articles for me
Well, actually, 'commissioned' is probably rather a grandiose name for what went on. I cornered him in the back room of the Kings Arms Hotel and plied him with pints of Greenall Whitley bitter until he agreed to write some stuff for me. The results usually arrived, several weeks after the deadline, in the form of notes, many of them indecipherable, written on scraps of paper and old envelopes and the like which I, after many late night telephone calls to John seeking clarification (not to mention 'urgent' meetings in the pub to discuss obscure points), would turn into articles.
This is one such article - just a brief fragment, really - and was,actually, a tailpiece to a longer article about the Kings Arms which will be featured here in due course. 'Old Nell', short as it is, does, I think, illustrate John's instinctive flair for storytelling, first experienced by myself and other enthralled youngsters in the late 50s at Wimboldsley School where John would regale us with ancient stories from his native Wales.
Somewhere in the archives I have a precious tape recording of John telling this little tale to Mel Scholes on Signal Radio's 'Pub of the Week' programme, when the King's Arms was the hostelry featured

OLD NELL
(The King's Arms, 1834)
by John Brunker
with Dave Roberts


Picture the scene. The tap room is crowded. It is market day and the town is full.
In comes a man, followed by Old Nell. Space is quickly cleared at a table for them both to sit down. The barmaid walks over and asks them if they would like their usual order.
The man nods his head and the drinks are delivered.
They are both well known in the town and questions are asked with regard to the odds on the afternoon's contest.
The man smiles and says they are 'good'.
Just then the clock chimes and it is time to go. A passage is quickly cleared for them and the pair depart, followed by most of the others.
They go down to the Market Square and make their way to the Bullring.
There is a stout post embedded in the centre to which two chains and shackles are attached. The two of them walk to it, and Old Nell prepares for her last performance.
Nell was the last bear to be baited in Middlewich. She was well-known in the town, and she loved her glass of beer.
(based on material from The Annals of Middlewich by C F Lawrence.)
 © Salt Town Productions 2011

Facebook feedback (from the 'You Know You're From Middlewich When.....' Facebook group):


Sharon Barnard What a great story!

THE TOWN WHARF circa 1973

by Dave Roberts

This slide was originally posted on the Middlewich Town Council Facebook Group on the 19th August 2010 as a kind of 'trial run' for the 'Middlewich Diary' and we've had to borrow it back from there, as the original slide seems to have gone missing.
We originally dated this one as '1971/2' but we now know this is wrong, because at that time the buildings on the wharf hadn't been whitewashed. So we've revised the date to 'circa 1973'.
The buildings in our picture look a lot smarter than they do in the present day, and there are more of them. Particularly sad was the loss of the small building with the chimney, centre right, which was originally, I think, a small laundry (or 'wash-house'). It's last known use was as a handy surface for one of the explanatory boards for the Roman Middlewich Trail. This has now been relocated to the wall of the Leadsmithy Street bus-shelter a short distance away.
Note that, alongside the main warehouse building, attempts at smartening up the area by tree-planting have been made.
And looming over the warehouse are two of the large buildings in Lewin Street which  disappeared a couple of years later to make way (eventually) for the Salinae clinic.
To the left is the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and, to the right, the C of E Infants School.
We won't make any further comment on the 'Gateway To Middlewich' scheme proposed for this area, except to say that we sincerely hope that it happens sooner rather than later.

SEE ALSO: TOWN WHARF CIRCA 1970

NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS

If there's something you'd particularly like to know about Middlewich, you can now E-mail us direct on

MiddlewichDiary@aol.com

MIDDLEWICH NOTES AND QUERIES ROUNDUP OCTOBER 2011

We hope you're enjoying our 'Middlewich Diary' and finding it entertaining and informative. Certainly more and more people are looking in each day. Sometime in the next week we will be reaching 10,000 page views since we started in June. Not exceptional for some professional blogs but quite remarkable for a specialist blog like this. Many thanks for your interest and please keep calling back. Better still, why not contribute?
We're always on the lookout for new material (see below for details). Remember that EVERY posting on 'A Middlewich Diary' is a 'work in progress' and can easily be altered and/or added to when new information comes to light. So if while browsing through our postings you come across something which you know to be wrong, or something you can give us extra information about, please don't hesitate to get in touch, either through Facebook or by e-mail at MiddlewichDiary@aol.com  - Dave Roberts, Editor.

From time to time people ask us for information which we do our best to supply. If we can't, we do have the option of appealing for this information from our readers, and that is what this posting is all about. If you can help with any of the following, we'll be more than grateful:

SHOPS IN CLEDFORD - Do you have any memories of the shops in Cledford, particularly the small but very handy row of shops next to The Turnpike? Do you have photographs of any of these shops in days gone by? Someone has asked us about 'Pineapple Fair' (or was it 'Fayre'?). If you can help us with any information on this or any of the other shops in Cledford, please get in touch.

NEWTON HALL - Keith Bagnall was recently making enquiries about Newton Hall and its history and wanted to know, in particular, if there was ever a slaughterhouse on or near the site. We have a vague recollection of hearing that the buildings fronting onto St Ann's Road and along the right hand side of Hannah's Walk may have had some connection with this trade. If you can help with this query, please let us know.

NORMAN MACKLIN - Everybody remembers Norman. He was a familiar sight around the streets of Middlewich for many years. Did anyone take any photographs of him? Do you, like many others, have fond memories of this eccentric, intelligent and likeable local resident? We'd love to hear from you, as we're hoping to put together a well deserved tribute to Norman for the Middlewich Diary.

CAN YOU HELP? - Do you have old photographs, documants or memorabilia relating to Middlewich and its history, be it ancient or quite recent? If so, and you'd like us to feature it on 'A Middlewich Diary' please get in touch.
You can call us on 01606 833404 or e-mail us on MiddlewichDiary@aol.com.
Or you can contact us through Facebook. Details are on the right hand side of this page.

RIVER WHEELOCK SUMMER 1967

Another idyllic Middlewich scene from the Summer of 1967. The River Wheelock meanders through meadowland in the river valley below Nantwich Road  before running over the weir underneath Mill Lane. Behind the trees in the background is the aqueduct which takes Nantwich Road under the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch canal. A second aqueduct, a few yards to the right, takes the river under that same embankment, and is said to be the twin of the familiar road aqueduct. On the extreme right of the photograph part of the.embankment can just be seen, taking the canal off in the direction of Church Minshull.
The Middlewich Branch was built late in the canal era. In fact by the time its construction was authorised the railway age had begun and the branch was built very much like a railway, with cuttings and embankments, rather than simply following the contours of the land as the earlier Trent & Mersey did.
In 1967 everything looked trim and neat and the area was  almost like parkland. This is not the case now, as explorations this Summer proved. The whole area is completely overgrown and it's almost impossible to even see the river from the little bridge over the weir in Mill Lane..
We'll be featuring 'Now and Then' shots in a future posting to prove the point.

A DOCTOR'S BILL FROM 1932

Hot on the heels of this wartime doctor's bill, comes a pre-war example, kindly loaned to us by Carole Hughes. The wording of the bill caused confusion initially, on my part at least, when I took the 'Dr' to be an abbreviation of 'Doctor' and wondered if 'To' was short for 'Thomas' or something similar.  Of course, this was complete nonsense, as Geraldine Williams gently pointed out:


 'I think it's actually the abbreviation of 'Debtor to J Murphy' - the old-style way of sending bills (not that I remember them of course!). I'm pretty certain his name was James.' 


This well known Middlewich practitioner was described by Geraldine  in our earlier posting as 'the formidable Dr Murphy'
The recipient of the bill for 'Professional Attendance' and/or 'Medicine &c' was Mr J H Sant of 40 St Annes Avenue, who paid £12. 12s. 0d (or 12 guineas) - a lot of money in 1932.
It's not clear quite what Mr Sant was paying for (and it's none of our business anyway) but it does show us once again how expensive medical treatment was in the days before the NHS.
Stamp Duty of 2d was payable on the transaction and two stamps have been affixed to make up the total - a 'halfpenny' and a 'three halfpence' (pronounced three a'pence).
The ins and outs of stamp duty are too complicated to go into here. It was largely abolished on small transactions many years ago, but still applies in certain circumstances to financial dealings. Notoriously, a form of it is still applicable when buying property worth more than £125,000.
But it's no longer necessary to 'sign over the stamp' as I used to do all those years ago in the Rates Office when I was selling dustbins to the good people of Middlewich.
You'll note that Dr Murphy's address is given, in the best autocratic manner, simply as 'The Beeches, Middlewich', implying that no further information was required.
At first we thought we had another 'where was this house?' mystery on our hands but, thankfully, the answer in this case is quite simple.

Photo: UK Real Estate listings

'The Beeches' is that very grand house on Chester Road with the intriguing turret on one side of it. Dr Brown lived there at one time.
People wanting to see Dr. Murphy would have to walk (or 'go traipsing' as they would no doubt have put it) all the way up to Chester Road to do so.
At the time of writing the house is on the market. And this is one property where Stamp Duty is definitely applicable.

THE TOWN CENTRE AT FESTIVAL TIME

Photo: Geraldine Williams

Here's another excellent example of a picture being worth a thousand words. In this posting we were talking about the redevelopment of Middlewich Town Centre and the building of the 'Roman amphitheatre' in the Bull Ring, making the point that the area attracts 'huge' crowds during the Middlewich FAB Festival in June. This was no idle claim, as is dramatically illustrated in this picture which has been kindly supplied by Geraldine Williams.

She writes:
I couldn't agree more with your observations about present-day Hightown and the first impressions it gives of the town when approached from the Chester Road end of St Michael's Way. This is precisely why I took this photograph a couple of years ago. G.W.


For some reason I could never fathom there was a certain element among the people of Middlewich, now, thankfully, almost extinct,  which was openly hostile to attempts to attract visitors to the town, notably during the heady days when the Folk & Boat Festival was being established in the 1990s.
These were the people I dubbed the 'Keep Middlewich Miserable Brigade'.
One such Moaning Minnie told me one day: 'You can tell me about the thousands of people going to concerts on Market Field until you're blue in the face. I don't believe you. It doesn't happen.'
I offered to show him some photographs of the huge crowds of people attending our concerts, but he simply refused to even look at them.
I loved the Saturday morning processions through the streets, not only for the colour, excitement and spectacle, but also for the boot up the bum it gave the KMMB as we brought the festival right into the heart of town, making it impossible to ignore. 
I'd see some of them skulking around Wheelock Street, desperately trying to pretend that the procession wasn't happening and I always made a point of giving them a smile and a cheery wave. 

LEWIN STREET circa 1973

by Dave Roberts

Jack Stanier was out and about recording the passing Middlewich scene at the same time as I was and most of his 35mm slides date from the early 1970s. This particular photo was taken, probably in 1973, from outside the Victoria Building in  Lewin Street and shows, in the distance, those buildings we've visited a few times already in this series; the C of E Infant School, the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and, between the two, 'Square One', the hardware shop.

We're dating this at around 1973 because the old workshops which fronted onto Lewin Street and Wych House Lane seem to have disappeared.

The white double fronted shop to the right of the chapel was, and is, Middlewich D.I.Y. and to the right of that are the shops which, at that time, were owned by the Howes family, of 'Howe's Pies' fame.

The pie shop itself was the one with the small window in the middle of the block, with its door  to the left.

There's a picture of the pie shop here, in a posting which tells a little about this Middlewich institution, but, in those days, there was no sign to indicate what the shop was. Presumably it didn't need one as the fame of the celebrated pies had already spread far and wide. They had been made on the premises for at least twenty years before this picture was taken.

To the right of the pie shop is Roland Howe's second hand shop where, as well as used furniture and the like, items such as brand new gas mantles, oil lamps and packets of 'dolly blue' could be bought, reflecting Roland's practice of buying up unsold stocks of such arcane material.

On the extreme right is a former butcher's shop which is now the 'Middlewich Fryer' (but still known to many as 'Giorgio's').

I'm not sure if the shop had started its new life as a chip shop at that time. It's hard to tell from this photograph. If not, it wasn't too long afterwards that fried potatoes and cod took over from prime cuts of beef and lamb.

In its original guise the chip shop retained the  tiling from the butchers business, showing idyllic rural scenes of cows grazing in meadows, but these are now long gone.

The road sign, to the left of the picture is of interest, although it's a shame that Jack didn't point his camera just a little more to the left so that we could see the whole thing.

The strange road configuration to the right of the sign shows Leadsmithy Street and its junction with the A54 on the Town Bridge, pointing the way to Winsford to the left and the M6 in the other direction.

The sign, inadvertently, gives the impression that Junction 18 of the M6 lies in a South-Easterly direction and, although Northwich and Chester are given as destinations on the sign, there is no indication that a left turn into King Street is needed to get there (although the road number is given. Years later, when Croxton Lane became the main route to Northwich, the section of King Street  between Kinderton Street and the Croxton Lane junction was declassified. In fact the sign seems to be telling motorists that both Chester and Northwich are also South-East of Middlewich.The road numbers in brackets are the clue to the real situation. The indication for the A54 to Winsford, which is partly visible at the top of the sign, does not apply to the M6 connection as might first be thought, but refers to the left hand route over Hightown which now, of course, runs in the other direction - i.e. from the Bull Ring to Lewin Street .

Facebook feedback:

Geraldine Williams I'm pretty sure that the butcher's shop was yet another Co-op enterprise, and the building on the right of it (now demolished) was the Co-op drapery store. The building with the For Sale sign on the opposite side of teh road was also a Co-op shop, but I can't remember what it sold. That shop eventually became a laundrette, which also had a coin-operated dry cleaning machine.

Dave Roberts You're right, Geraldine. The laundrette was supervised by a Mrs meakin who had twin sons. It was a grocer's and general provisions shop in Co-op days. Nowadays, of course, it's Rowlands Chemist and Middlewich post office. Mr James Hardy is the current manager.

Stephen Dent I can knock on the wall to James and Mandy
(Stephen was at this time the Assistant Town Clerk and was working in the Victoria Building - Ed)

Dave Roberts We have an old picture somewhere showing the shop as a grocer's, with the Crown Hotel (now the Narrowboat) next door. We had it on our fridge door suring the time when two of Lynne's sons, James and Peter, were working in adjacent buildings: James in the Post Office and Peter as Chef in the Narrowboat.

Stephen Dent Not forgetting The Danes.

Geraldine Williams Yes, even the carpets had a Great Dane pattern, didn't they?

Dave Roberts They did. A carpet specially commissioned by the landlord, rumour had it, who was the world's foremost Great Dane fan. So much so that he reputedly named the pub after his own dogs.

Andrew Tomlinson Re. the road sign. it is correct as far as I can see. The first branch left is High Town, then short straight to what is now the lights. Turn left for Winsford and right for M6, Northwich. Further signs before station bridge would direct straight on for M6 and right turn for King Street.

Dave Roberts Yes it's right, just a little confusing if you don't know the area. As you say, once you've turned right at Town Bridge everything becomes clear from the signs in Kinderton Street. I think what causes the confusion is that there were two routes to Winsford then - over Highton and by turning left at Town Bridge. I don't think anyone ever had a problem, though.

I think the point that Andrew is making is that the sign in question, seen here in its entirety, is a diagram rather than a map, in just the same way that the London tube 'map' is. It's not really deigned to tell you where you are, just where to go.

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PARISH CHURCH FROM TOWN BRIDGE 1972

Another scene which doesn't seem to have changed all that much in the last thirty-nine years, apart from the all-enveloping dense vegetation which has engulfed the town since then. This view of St Michael & All Angels Church and its environs can best be dated by the antiquated looking cars (and the fact that there aren't many of them) and the total lack of traffic lights on the bridge. Few can deny that Middlewich these days is beset by severe traffic problems and that developments in the pipeline are calculated to make things much worse instead of better. Conversely, any scheme which might alleviate these problems has huge obstacles thrown up in its path. And how many towns are obliged to put up with a 'bypass' which comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of a field?

Anyway, back to 1972; to the right can be seen one of those confusing local signs pointing the way to 'Council Offices Sandbach' which actually became less confusing two years later when the Congleton Borough Council came into being and based its main offices at Westfields.The green sign above it directs people to Stoke-On-Trent.

DEMOLITION OF SHOPS ON HIGHTOWN 1972

by Dave Roberts

1972 seems to have been a pivotal year for Middlewich. It was the year that demolition began in earnest as the first stage in the 'redevelopment' of the town centre, and in this picture we can see the shops in Hightown which were sacrificed, along with the Town Hall, to create the much criticised 'piazza' in front of St Michael & All Angels church. A crude, rather home made-looking sign asking people to 'please cross over' can be seen next to the shops.
To the right  is that mysterious black oblong which seems to find its way into many pictures taken at the time. It's the canopy over the front of the 'Co-op Superstore' and it disappeared a long time ago.
On the left, almost out of shot, we can just see Middlewich's  war memorial, boarded up with what look like old doors, prior to its removal for protection during the demolition.
The 'No Entry' signs clearly show that the traffic flow at the time was in the 'Northwich', rather than the 'Sandbach' direction. 
For a time, after the traffic flow was reversed, and much to everyone's amusement, the old 'left turn only' sign at the bottom of Queen Street was left in situ when the newer 'right turn only' sign was put in place. Local people, of course, knew the score, but many a hapless visitor to the town ended up rather perplexed.
In front of what was then the National Westminster Bank, out of shot to the right, is the bus stop, now replaced by the 'bus interchange' on a short stub of road which  used to be part of Lower Street.

The scene after demolition:

 A full description can be found here.

LEA'S PASSAGE EARLY 1970s

Pronounced, for the uninitiated, 'Lee-ahs'. Lea's Passage is a  footpath which links Nantwich Road with the top part of Newton Heath. The entire area has been completely re-developed since Jack Stanier took his photograph but, in a strange way, does not look startlingly different. The interesting looking house on the left has gone and so has the stepped terrace of houses along Nantwich Road, which runs along the right hand side of the picture, and a sheltered housing development has taken their place. The house at this end of the terrace appears to be huge, and was probably two smaller houses at one time. The other houses in the row look positively tiny in this picture; there were a great many of these little houses in Middlewich at one time and many of them were, and still are, in this area of the town. At the top end of the terrace, at the junction of Nantwich Road and Newton Heath, was a corner shop which served this part of Nantwich Road and 'Newtonia'.
The large red triangular road sign is the 1970s version of a long series of signs in Nantwich road which have, over the years, warned lorry drivers of the presence of, and height of, the aqueduct (pronounced 'th'ackerdock') which carries the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch canal over Nantwich Road about half a mile up the road. Its smaller predecessor is just to the right, and obviously must haved proved ineffective.
The latest warning sign, placed a few yards further up the road in recent years, is a high-tech electronic version which flashes a dramatic warning to any excessively high vehicle to 'turn back'.
Unfortunately, when some unfortunate trucker does activate the sign, innocent motorists, seeing it, and thinking it is meant for them too, also try to 'turn back'.
Notwithstanding all these warning signs, bridge strikes are a frequent and apparently increasing problem.
UPDATE (October 2016): The introduction of 'satnavs', rather than improving the situation, only seemed to make things worse, with the number of high vehicles hitting the aqueduct increasing all the time. It was revealed in October 2016 that, quite incredibly, some satnavs show Nantwich Road passing over the SU Canal rather than underneath it!

STEAM ON THE MIDDLEWICH LINE 2008

Photo: Ian Hulme - Photos 2 Use. Used by permission

Here's another shot of the Cheshire Gardens Express on the Sandbach-Middlewich-Northwich line on May 4th 2008 - the first steam hauled train to use the line since 1968. At the time of writing the Mid-Cheshire Rail Users' Association is planning to organise steam trains on the Mid-Cheshire line in 2012. but it's not clear whether the Middlewich line will be included this time around*.

Our photograph was taken by Ian Hulme and is used with his permission. Ian has a large collection of excellent photographs of North West England, including Cheshire, on his website.

*UPDATE- Sadly it didn't happen in 2012, not even on the Mid-Cheshire line. The line was also steamless in 2013 and 2014 -Ed
UPDATE - April 2016 ...and on through 2015 and into 2016. Let's hope it happens again one day -Ed

SEE ALSO: STEAMING THROUGH MIDDLEWICH

A WARTIME DOCTOR'S BILL 1940

This document, remarkably, has survived for 71 years in its original envelope, and was found among other papers, at the house of  one of my honorary 'Uncles'  after he died. Harry Shore was, in actual fact, my mother's cousin (probably several times removed) and lived at no. 44 King Street from the late thirties until his death in the 1980s. It's not clear, which 'Mr Shore' the bill is addressed to. Harry himself was in the army during the war, so this Mr Shore is most likely to be his father. A perusal of census forms from the period would confirm this.

The bill, dated exactly one year after the start of the war, is for 'Professional Attendances &c from April to September 1940', a period of six months, so it  would appear that Dr Neill was being consulted throughout someone's long illness.

1940 was eight years before the introduction of the NHS, and this is a salutary reminder of how things were before that invaluable but beleaguered organisation came into being. 

In 1940 £4 11s was a lot of money, even for six months of health care.

Dr Neill was, of course, a popular and highly respected doctor in Middlewich well into my time. But where was 'The Lindens' in Wheelock Street? The only 'Lindens' I know of is associated with 'The Limes' in Chester Road, which was a children's home when I was young.

Was 'The Lindens' the name for the surgery we all remember where the 'Cafe Med' was in later years?

UPDATE

Geraldine Williams writes:

Was this 'The LIndens'?

I don't understand the phone no. and 'at home' on the billhead. We moved back to Middlewich in 1947 and as far as I can remember Dr Neill's surgery was always in that big house next-door-but-one to us but I thought Dr Neill lived in Nantwich Road and his (later) partner Dr Graham lived near Stanthorne crossroads. He wasn't our doctor. When we returned to Middlewich the formidable Dr Murphy had retired and our doctors were Brown and Jones at Ivy House surgery in Wheelock Street but they had houses in the Chester Road/Croxton Lane area. When the Americans moved into Byley camp the house was owned by a Mrs Haydock who ran it as a sort of lodging/guest house, although the surgery was still separate at the front. I never knew the house as 'The Lindens' - a name which, like you, I associated with The Limes, but I'm sure it must have warranted a name.

Despite the passage of time, and the change of use, the 'old' surgery in Wheelock Street hasn't changed much externally. Was it ever called 'The Lindens'? -ed

LNWR MIDDLEWICH SIGNAL BOX SIGN

Photo: Middlewich Rail Link Campaign

by Dave Roberts

Here's a precious relic of Middlewich's railway past, now  in the possession of the Middlewich Rail Link Campaign and safely housed at the home of  a committee member. It's one of the signs from the London & North Western Railway's signal box at Middlewich, which was abolished in 1980. 

The story of how the sign was recovered and returned to its home town, along with other details, can be found here.

Somewhere there must be another, identical sign. The signal box had two; one at the 'Northwich' end and one at the 'Sandbach' end, and it's highly unlikely that one sign would be preserved and not the other.

For a (very distant) shot of the sign in situ, look at this posting.