Here’s a photo that I took last week of The Old Smithy – a building that you can see down the little alley way next to the bike shop on Market Street. Until fairly recently there was a sign on this building for Jones The Chain. That’s now gone for whatever reason (any idea why?) but the original sign (maybe) remains, dating The Old Smithy back to 1882. So what was the Old Smithy? A comment in this post says that Jones The Chain sold paraffin and Calor gas along with chains for boat moorings.
Walk down the alley into Old Smithy Courtyard and there’s another building to the left that is used by a company called Quadrant Press:
I can’t place this building, but does the alley run down between what used to be Sammy Cattell’s bike shop and Jack Dodd’s cobbler’s shop, back in the day? Sammy Cattell had a repair workshop for bikes down the alley, and I remember Jack Dodd sewing a replacement panel into my old leather “casey”, which added a few more years onto it’s life.
No, this alleyway is opposite Melrose Avenue and the Ship Inn.
You’re thinking of where the car park and Holy Trinity School is opposite Hoose Court. That old bike shop is now the Cupcake Cafe and the old cobblers is now a computer repairs business. The cobbled alleyway is stil there though.
When my Dad left the police in 1947 he went to work for Jones and Chapman[ who were in the Pizza Magicshop I think,] till 1967
He was supplied with an Austin Car which he kept in their Garage which was the one on the left in the picture. We were certainly lucky to have a car as not many did in those days. Jones, the chain, was in the other one as you rightly say for many years and we used to see him working in the garage. I believe he also worked at Cammell Lairds. The brick wall in the picture is the wall of the HELP shop and Incredible Edible Greenhouse is now in the yard behind it.
Wasn’t this building where the butcher used to kill the animals they sold? I may well be wrong but I always thought that was the case.
I always thought ta=hat the Hoylake Abattoir was as up the alleyway in the block which has John Chapman Insurance at one end and Panache at the other. Why this memory? Well Panache was the Co-Op Grocery shop and my memory thinks that the shops next to it were the dairy (bottling plant at the rear of Panache) and the butchers next to the diary (abattoir up the alleyway next to it).
As someone who is first generation Hoylake I feel sure that there are others out there who will be able to remember the days of these shops and be able to put me right!!!
The abbatoir was at the back of 35, Market street now Marcus James Accountants.
It was Binner’s Butchers and you are right has a cow in the wall above it.
The abbatoir became the Jigger Club where Miss Marie Binner held Whist Drives in the winter months which were very well supported.
At present it is being renovated by Mr and Mrs McKinley and can clearly be seen through the alley between Milocraft and Hilbre House.
There was also an abbatoir behind Everite Double Glazing, where the 2 Houses are now, when that was also a Butchers. Steve Parr was the manager.
When I was young and visiting my grandparents in Walker Street that there was a smithy near the end of Shaw Street (on the right) on the way to the beach. Were there two smithy’s?
Yes I believe you are referring to Mr Fleet’s smithy, that was in Walker Street, opposite Groveland Avenue, where he resided.
What a lovely, but often grumpy old man!
Good old Hoylake days.