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Help dating this picture

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This picture was taken looking up the high street towards the cross but i haven't got a date on it if anyone can help,thanks

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The woman's dress and the style of the cars should give us a clue. I used to do all my shopping at Coopers and refused to shop at the new Super market when it opened in probably 1960.

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I reckon the 50's

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The Chester Road junction with Morton's sweetshop on the right hand side.

I vaguely remember the building that jutted into the road as another sweetshop owned by,  Rose Ashton/Ashford/Ashington.

I'm sure the road was widened about 1960, maybe a little earlier, so I'm guessing the photo to be mid to late fifties.

And was it 'Cooper's'  just out of shot on the left? I remember a large red coffee grinder in the window and the smell of fresh grounds as you passed.



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Looks like 50s. Have tried to make out the advertising boards with my magnifying glass, but cannot. I think if you could view these better you would be closer to dating the picture.

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Not 'Rose'... but 'Stella Ashington', small, curly-haired, with 'Vernon Girls' type glasses. A friend of mum's, so I usually got free sweets when we popped in.

I was born in 1948 and through the fifties I can remember:

Molly, who sold fish from out of her pram?

Tom Wynn, sold fruit and veg from his horse and cart.

Aaron, with his 'Good morning, nice morning.' greeting. I believe he jumped from one of the railway bridges as a young boy.

The chip-shop next to Pykes the butchers, I think we had 3 chippies in Neston in the fifties.

The Co-op, opposite the town hall, before they renewed the frontage, with the wooden, swinging vents to the cellars still visible and discarded 'Woodbine' cigarette packets beneath the grills.

The fields opposite Mayfield Gardens. Before they built the 'Raby Road' housing estate. I recall catching some sort of little amphibians from the ponds and putting them into jam-jars. My memory tells me they lived in holes in the mud and were called 'skippers'... but I'm sure they must have simply been young frogs or newts. I couldn't have been more than three years old at that time, tagging along behind my older sibling and her friends.

Summer days at 'The Rocks' down the colliery, watching dad swimming in the 'bomb-hole'. We usually took a packed lunch and a flask of tea for mum and dad, then we'd buy a bottle of 'pop' from aunty Joyce's and uncle Tom's shop in New Street. I remember Gwen, Joyce's daughter and my cousin, joining us and swimming underwater for a considerable time and me bursting into tears, thinking she'd drowned! Memories, huh!?

Weekly delivery of groceries from 'Masons' next to the Town Hall. The box usually contained a bag of plain biscuits which would last us all week.

The garage on 'The Cross' with the two hand-operated pumps. It later became 'Shands' while the garage proprietor moved to his new site next to the 'Malt Shovel Inn.'

Mealor's Cafe, next door, where I could buy sweets with the stamps. Sugar was rationed into the early fifties.

The toy-shop down 'Parkgate Road' down the steps to gain entry.

The fair-ground behind the Town Hall on Ladies Club Day and the thick, heavy mud when it rained.

'Stanney Fields' when they had a full team of gardeners. Beautiful shrubbery and flower-beds, manicured lawns, tennis courts, pavilion with toilets and, of course, 'the park' with the 'witches hat', 'american seesaw' 'big swings', 'small swings' and the 'shute'... followed later by the boat-shaped sandpit, the 'rocking horse' and the 'castle'.

The smell of freshly baked bread from the bakery, next to the post office, at the top of Neston.

The 'Cinder Path' from the station to the bridge on Liverpool Road.

Visiting my gran in the Cottage Hospital at Little Neston.

The May dance and races somewhere in Little Neston.

The football matches down the colliery although I can't recall where, exactly.

My first school in Bushell Road, with Mrs Alderton and Mrs Clark. Even now, the smell of red coal-tar(?) soap takes me back to the tiny wash-room/cloakroom. I even remember the two types of writing slates we had! The black, rough, rectangular ones which we didn't like... and the smooth, green, square ones which were nicer to draw on. And, of course, the outside toilets!

Happy new year.



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Wow, really enjoyed reading this post. I was born in 1956 but loved to hear the history. Just thought I would mention the soap, I believe it was red lifeboat soap, they used to cut the bars in half at ness holt school. I remember it well as a teacher washed my mouth out with it for telling her to shut up. I have just googled the soap and you can still buy it.

What happened to the sandstone steps opposite bendee avenue? Can anyone answer this. Happy New year to you all

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Yes, I remember that freshly cut soap was difficult for our little hands to grasp if the caretaker had been too generous with the pieces.

We drove through Parkgate earlier, today and decided that later in the year, the next time John was up this way, we'd do the Deeside to Neston marsh walk.

Earlier this year, we walked Hadlow Road, Willaston to Parkgate Baths, along the Wirral Way. We had lunch and a drink at 'The Old Quay', walked from Moorside to 'The Harp' and had another couple of drinks. Across the fields and up 'Well Lane' to Ness Holt. Along to 'Woodfall Lane', up into 'Cuckoo Lane' (is that an official name or just an old local name? I never recall seeing a road sign with that name on it.) Up towards the highroad and back onto the Wirral Way near the Liverpool Vetenary College. (Is it still a college?)

I don't recall any sandstone steps opposite 'Bendee'. We lived on the Mellock Estate from 1951 to 1966 so that was familiar territory. I'm assuming you're refering to the grass slope beside the little power station... any steps must have appeared after we moved from there. I remember everybody cut across the grass and wore a wide, bare strip of earth that became very slippy when wet. That would have been an appropriate place for steps!

I remember, just at the top of that slope, rushing to clamber up the bridge wall to watch the steam trains passing beneath and the smell of the steam-cloud that enveloped us.

Neston South Station Photograph

 



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Thanks Wilky,to look at some lovely old photos of the area if you are on facebook ive attached a link below,Andy

 

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/neston.parkgate/photos_stream



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Google mapped the steps. They are opposite bendee avenue on Lee's lane. They look concrete now, but they used to be a reddish sandstone, and I climbed up them many times. Don't know when they came about, but they were just a bit further up from that little water station place on the same side of the road. Remember going to that little place a school visit. Also remember the water round thing, Don't know the proper name for it. I used to be quite scared of it. Also remember being told as a child that a boy had fell off the bridge over the railway. It was the bridge at the top of bendee road on the left along the field, the field used to have cabbages in. Also remember Mr beech,s shop, not sure of the name of the road, straight over from the bottom of bendee road, with the cigarette machines outside and his penny tray, with a section for half penny sweets, old money of course. There was also a house opposite the neston park gates which sold sweets too. And don't forget the cinema, a proper cinema, not like the mini screens now.

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Nestonlad, I just beat you to it... I found the site you mentioned 3-4 weeks ago, it turns out we're related!!! There's certainly some fond memories of places that only exist in these old photographs, now. I began my own retro tour around the area, a couple of years ago and Stuart's given me the incentive to carry on working on it. It still needs a lot of work though.
Take a look:

http://monologues.co.uk/Neston/The-Cross.htm

I've got a query! At the station end of Bushell Road, there used to be a little patch of grass in the centre of the road with a post in the middle of it. I've been trying to remember what it was called, for months. It's where they used to hold **** fights, long before our time and I vaguely remember it as the '****-Ring' or the '****-Pit'... neither of which sounds quite right! Any ideas?



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Marie, I think I've seen the steps you're referring to and they're long after my time. When I lived there in the fifties and sixties, that bit of ground was just the bridge embankment. The station was still there when I left.

I know that bridge at the top of Bendee Road, very well, it's the one with the wide, sandstone shelf underneath that we could access by a very narrow path from the top, one of our many 'dens'. I think it must have been there for Benson's Farm tractors to reach their fields. Could that be where Aaron took his tumble, I wonder? That must have been in the 1930s.

I can remember Beech's shop being built in Raeburn Avenue,  on a piece of waste ground, where the bonfire was built every November 5th. I also remember the week decimalisation came in... I bought a Mars Bar, from Beech's, for sixpence one day and another a few days later for 5 new pence! Twice the price!!!

Do you remember Mrs. Oxton at the bottom of Cottage Close? She had a little shop in a shed in her back yard, mostly sweets, pop and cigarettes but a small selection of groceries, I think. If mum sent us down for something, we had to knock on Mrs. Oxton's  kitchen door and hope that she wasn't in the middle of a meal, she could be quite short with you, at times.

Bewglass's was the sweet shop opposite the park, that was another popular 'penny tray' shop.

I certainly remember the Cinema, I think it may have been 'The Plaza' in my day (2 films a week) and later 'The New Cinema'. My mum actually entrusted me to the care of my older cousin, Chris Burke!!! If only she knew how I suffered after the films finished on Saturday afternoons... being the younger one, I had to be Ming the Merciless to his Flash Gordon and suffer the indignities of being tied up and dragged around the park fields! Happy ******* days!



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The steps where opposite the end of Bendee Avenue, looking across Lees Lane. I used to go up these steps to get into the field. I have recently gone on google, going up Bendee Road and turning right onto Bendee Avenue, at the end, as if you are going to cross over Lees Lane, they are now some kind of enclosed concrete steps.

Yes I was told this story about the boy who fell off the bridge, I think it was used as a warning to children. We played for hours away from home. Yes and Mr Beech’s shop, he wore a white coat and had a advert right behind the counter for a box of Milk Tray chocolates a quarter of a pound (4ozs!!) I am sure they were advertised for 2 shillings. Left in 1968 so didn’t witnessed decimalisation at Neston. But yes I do remember Mrs Oxton, her shop in the shed, which was alongside the path to the park (with the iron gateway). Do you remember the goldfish ponds in her garden, which where concrete oblongs, there was two, I was told to go and look at the fish, while chat/shopping went on.

So that was the name of that sweetshop - Bewglass’s, thank you. Yes the cinema, there just not the same anymore. I remember we used to play shop in Ness Holt at dinner time one of us used to ask for a quarter of tea and half a pound of butter and the other one used to pretend to pick it off the shelf and put it on the counter and then go for the next item. There was also a market around the side of the town hall and inside I think? And Coopers, Neston park- watching the trains from the park and playing on the see saw, also baby swings and big swings, the witches hat and big slide, and castle (which was more for the boys) the gardens there; I found half a crown there once. Also that huge tree (willow?) was there a bit of a wooden path there? Do you remember that school you got to it by going to the bottom off Bendee Road turning right and it was just further down, it was partitioned into two classrooms. Its own hatch for the dinners, piano and two teachers, one with dark curly hair (used to ride a bike) and the other a white haired lady (she was my teacher) I’m sure she was married to a Mayor, cannot remember their names. And the playground at the back looked over the stream and the tennis courts, the park to the left. I remember seeing a kingfisher looking out from this playground; I saw it regularly so it may well have been the same one, it used to hang around above the stream.


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We appear to be talking about two different sets of steps, my fault... I'm mixing up Bendee Road with Bendee Avenue. I think the steps on Lees Lane, opposite Bendee Avenue are possibly the ones that led to the old sandstone, water-tower and then onto Cuckoo Lane, Woodfall Lane and through to Mill Lane in Ness.

And the shop beside the park pathway, opposite the station, would have been 'Withers', fruit and veg... 'Mrs Oxten' was at the bottom of Cottage Close, last house on the left, next to Burton Road.

A perfect description of Bushell Road, exactly as I remember it in 1953, that's were I remember the smell of coal-tar soap from.. Could your teacher have been Mrs McBradley?... her husband was a councillor for many years so may well have become Mayor. Mrs. McBradley, herself, was a supply teacher and taught at other schools in the area.



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Glad about those steps, I fondly remember them. Yes it was a water tower, thank you for that. Remember the tip (turn left off bendee avenue and follow the road around, they used to burn stuff there. Also not 100% about the sweet shop on the corner of Burton road, when did it close? I went to the school on Burton road. My first class was the first building on the left (with the school on the left, teacher was called miss Jones. I used to look out of the window and count the train carriages, with summers printed on them, and a end of train carriages which sometimes had a man standing in. The canteen a cross the road it was either a big or small dinner, and you had to ask for a big or small. And what was known as the jungle further up from the school towards neston on the right, I think there was a bit of a stream there too. Remember villas, she used to have a chair in her shop, and hold a ten shilling note up to the light, looking for the silver line.

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My mother told me that the bridge Aaron fell off was the little one on Church Lane, near the Comrades football ground.

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Comrades field is still there they use it for horses now but once a year at the beginning of July they use it for Neston village fair which has been going for about 15 years



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