I'm trying to find some pics I've seen 1 the shelter/canopy on Argyle st/Cleveland st corner to match up with these street view pics and find out what it once was. Somebody told me once it was the stables for the Cleveland Arms.
2 A picture of a tram passing a church on the other corner where the treasury? building is
I've always been puzzled by this one, as none of the other houses on Hamilton Square have anything like it, but I've never been able to find any info on what it was for. The early maps show that 19 Hamilton Square was originally built with its 'front' door on the side, facing onto Cleveland Street. At some point in the late 1800s an extension was added to the side of the building and the original door casing was replaced on the end of it, facing onto Hamilton Square as it does now. Presumably the whole wall along the Cleveland Street side was added at this time as it's all built in the same style.
A possible clue to the extension's purpose may come from the house's occupants; it seems that for many years it was occupied by a succession of medical men and used as a doctor's surgery. Presumably the arched entrance was originally to allow their carriages to enter the back yard area with its adjoining coachhouse and stables, but it may also have been to allow patients to enter the premises in privacy, either arriving in their own carriage or possibly even in a horsedrawn ambulance? My 1903 Directory indicates that by then, however, the stables had been let to John Lyon & Co, ginger ale and mineral water manufacturers, whose main works were in Oldham Street, off Renshaw Street in Liverpool. Presumably the stables were used by them for the horses and carts that delivered their products on this side of the river.
I remember the old canopied bus-stop on the side of the building as I often used to catch the bus there on the way to my gran's, but I'm not sure I've got a photo of it; I'll have to have a good hunt round.
I think the second picture you're thinking about may be the well-known engraving from the Illustrated London News of a single-decker tram in front of the Congregational Chapel on the opening day of the tram system in 1860. I definitely have a copy of that somewhere, which I'll post when I find it.
I can remember the old canopied bus stop and for some unknown reason I seem to have memories of Horses and milk carts coming out of the stables there in the early fifties, could be wrong, maybe they were just making a delivery.
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
I think I know the photographs you are after, but I haven't come across them yet.
However, in the Pleasures Past video 'Memories of Wirral in the 1940's & 50's' there is a short section around Hamilton Square at 30 minutes in. It shows a bowler hatted gentleman using the Hamilton St Post Office and then pans along the Cleveland St section of the Square to the corner where the Council offices now are, where the old Church, minus its roof, can be seen. It then cuts to the other corner, where the estate agents were, but unfortunately we can't see quite enough to get a glimpse of the shelter. I also think that a longer version of this film appears in another their video's, demonstrating some road safety do's & don'ts, which included a cyclist hanging on to a bus, getting on to a moving bus, and sitting chatting at the lights while they change a few times. I've not come across that one today, but I'll find it.
The shelter was a lean-to canopy with the wall, open at both ends. It had a glass roof with cast iron uprights and the usual tubular railings at the pavement edge. It was long enough to accomodate two busses of the time. I'm sure it survived into the hands of the MPTE.
It is interesting to see the yellow clay bricks used in the wall of the stables. They sometimes appear on buildings in Birkenhead of that time and are occasionally seen as a relief in some Wallasey buildings, but hardly anywhere else around here. There are similar bricks in some other northern towns, but the only other place I can think of that use them in large numbers is in London. Theirs are a slightly different shade, obviously from different clay pits.
The 'modern' white-faced Council building on the corner used to house the Education, Rates and Vehicle Taxation Departments for the Borough, as well as the driving test examiners. Part of the motorcycle test, as conducted in the late 60's & early 70's, involved the examiner watching the candidate ride at walking pace, by walking alongside him or her. Invariably, this was performed in Hamilton Lane, the road between the back of the stables and the pub.
Hello My father Donald Colley had a garage R and D Colley on the corner of Cleveland Street and Chapel Street from 1946 to 1965 I have searched in vain for a photograph Does anyone have any ideas?
