KINDERTON STREET RECONSTRUCTION 1974

For some reason it took quite a long time for us to decide on the year that both these pictures of Kinderton Street were taken. Originally we published the left hand one, which I took, with the date of 1972 and dated the right hand one, by Jack Stanier, as 1974. How these dates were arrived at is rather complicated and we won't go into it here, particularly as it is quite obvious that, despite the vast changes in Kinderton Street evident from the comparison of the two, our original estimates were wrong and these pictures were both taken in the same year, just a few months apart.

Apart from the demolition of the property in Kinderton Street from Percivals right up to the junction with King Street, the photos are practically identical, the only real difference being that the sparse vegetation in the left hand shot has given way to lush  late Summer green-ness in the other photo.
So we now think that these slides were taken in May and September of 1974, when the Church Tower was open to visitors on two separate occasions.
One other difference between the two pictures is that in the later one, with the sad demise of Moreton's farm house on the corner of Kinderton Street and King Street, its modern replacement has appeared to the left of where it stood. Could this house have been built in four months, assuming that it had been finished by September? We think so.
So that's the current thinking on this one. Until we change our minds again.

Here are the original slides, so that you can take a closer look:

The original descriptions can be found here and here.

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Andrew Tomlinson: The empty shop next to Dickenson's bungalow in the left hand photo used to be Dean's Undertakers and was run by Len Dean, brother of George Dean the coalman.


First published 14th December 2011

Amended and re-published 14th December 2016