Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Old Chester Road

Come across this photo of a bus in Old chester road

cracking photo atmospheric cant beat the black and white.

Looks like they are building summat in the foreground, any idea what it is?

the building work in the foreground was the construction of Merey Mount flats. Two blocks. Aprox 1961/62

The double fronted shop to the rear of the bus was Gellavere's (cannot remember correct spelling) I delivered newspapers for them in the mid 50's

Not far from Fred Goldstraw's antiques shop. Great for old gramophones, radios, etc.

Good photo, brings back memories. It must have been taken from the corner of the building site or the bowling green next to it, showing the ground floor of the southern tower. There used to be ATC huts there and I have a mental picture of these flats going up probably no later than 1960, as it was a couple of years later that the even bigger flats went up at the top of Mersey Park between Sydney Road and Sydney Terrace (after demolishing some old sandstone cottages). In the book 'Nostalgic Wirral' there is a picture looking down Sydney Road, over Old Chester Rd, towards Lairds. The picture was obviously taken from some part of the new flats under construction, and is dated as 1961.
Back to the photo and I guess that the small road on the left is Randle St, so the garage on the corner must have been rebuilt sometime later. The end of Randal St. that we see there looks more like a piece of hardstanding now, and modern building and renaming of streets there could make you thing it was Beaconsfield Rd., which was the next road to the north.
The house numbers between Randle St. and Union St. (the next road to the right, out of shot but still there) are 147 to 167 Old Chester Road.
The premises of 'A Gellavere, Newsagent' were at No. 153 according to the 1964 phone book (BIRkenhead 7473).
Fred Goldstraws is one place I remember well, not so much for the aparrent junk inside, but for the SMELL. It stunk in there, probably due to the pipe tobacco he used to smoke. Very organic, shall we say. But Fred's shop would not have been in this picture. He was a couple of hundred yards further south, at 211 Old Chester Rd, (thanks again to the 1964 Phone Book, with tel. no. ROCk Ferry 3799). The premises were next to the corner shop at the junction of Cobden Place - or approximately opposite the end of Crofton Road, where Wyverns fruit and veg shop was, very close to the Collisieum Picture House.
So, before I put the large-scale OS map away (SJ3287SW) I'll just run through the properties along that section of road, so covering the East side of Old Chester Road from Orchard Road to Cobden Place, as follows.
Opposite St. Lukes Church is Orchard Rd. Between here and Beaconsfield Rd. we have numbers 119 to 123. Between Beaconsfield Rd. and Randle St we have the garage. From Randal St to Union St. we have numbers 149 to 167. From the south side of Union St. we have numbers 167A to 179, then we reach the Methodist Church. Then we number up to 199, next door to the Tranmere Congregational Church, then numbers 201 to 213 take us to the corner of Cobden Place.
I seem to remember a Greek fish and chip shop openning up around there in the early 60's. They were good too, and the first place that I came across 'Golden Wonder' Crisps - only 3d. small or 5d. large, and no blue bag to chew on! Great!

Any more thoughts on this part of Old Chester Road?

between,the congregational church and the corner of cobden place was cunninghams fish and chip shop[the best at the time,] there was a sweet shop on the corner of cobden place called,charlies[charlsworths]

Ah yes, Cunninghams. Great chippy.
The Greek chippy I mentioned (later it became a Chinese) was closer to the bottom of Well Lane, I think.
And there was another chippy in Crofton Rd (north side) by the junction of Moorland Rd (I think). They used to fry with Bibbys lard, and boxes of it often used to line the wall and the kids sit on them while waiting to be served..

crofton rd chippy is still there

The greek chippy was called the golden sunrise and was on the left hand side of Old chester road if you where facing towards rock ferry. It was in the stretch of shops between Grenville road and Glastone road. Wyverns fruit and feg shop was actualy on the corner of Tuder road.

I used to live for a short while in one of the sandstone cottages, that was next to a junk store. Was that Fred Goldstraw's , if i remember correctly the house was #100,later moved to # 14 old chester road opposite Green Lane Railway station. There was a steep hill next to the house and I remember some guy on a bicycle killing himself accidently by running into the sandstone wall trying to stop when his brakes failed riding down the hill

Fred's shop was 211 Old Chester Rd - on the other side to where you were thinking of.
I think you must be thinking in terms of the early 60's, as I remember this happening, too. Bicycle accidents were quite common then, with people travelling too fast down any of those stee roads, e.g., Holborn Hill, Hillside Road, Holt Road, Sydney Road, etc.
The sandstone cottages and shops I remember were on the west of Old Chester Rd, between Sydney Terrace and the Quarry. They would have been even numbered. In the middle of one block was a shop where the owner would still recharge batteries (accumulators) for radio's, mend bicycles straighten buckled wheels and stocked all sorts of associated items.
A little further along on one corner was a junk shop (perhaps the one you are thinking of) and on the opposite corner, the shop sold secondhand clothes. I can't quite place which road was between them, but it was a steep one leading up to Holt Hill.
They all got demolished around the same times as the ones at the top of Sydney Road & Sydney Terrace, in preparation for the flats being built.

I had forgotten about those sandstone cottages, they were on the left of oldchester rd going towards cammel lairds. There was also a shopfront that was boarded up (bomb damage) a little furthur on. I worked as a delivery boy for a butchers shop that was there, trying to ride a heavy bike up those hills to make a delivery was something else I had forgotten.

I know where you mean, the very top end of Old Chester Road down to its junction with Queen Street. I rarely went down that way so don't remember it much. It's all new houses on the left (west side). Some of this was built on the site of the very old properties, and some is built where more recent buildings were.
The terraced houses on the right, between the Station and Chamberline St. were demolished and now form part of the station car park.
The sandstone shops and cottages I was thinking of could have been nearer the junction with Queen St, or actually on Queen St itself.
I also mentioned Hillside Road where it joins Old Chester Road. The most memorable feature of Hillside Road at the point is the fact that it is not a road at all, but a passageway consisting series of broad, wide steps (perhaps a hundred or so), which winds its way up the hill to the road propper.
Sidney Terrace had something similar - a sloping passageway, a few steps, another 50ft of sloping passageway and a few more steps etc.
Both were passageways that a cyclist would remember..