During January Incredible Edible Hoylake (facebook page or email incrededhoylake@gmail.com) undertook a survey to see the benefits of locally sourced eggs and where in Hoylake you can buy them. This is what the survey concluded:

• lower food miles involved
• supports the local economy
• prices can vary but are often less than eggs sourced from non-local

And here is a list of Hoylake shops that sell locally-sourced eggs:

• Bill Page Butchers
• Hoylake Fisheries
• Three Sisters
• Cost Cutter (Grove Road)
• Lifestyle (Market Street)
• Newsmag Extra (Albert Road)

I do know that a few locals keep ex-battery hens in their gardens and enjoy a steady supply of fresh eggs …you might try a spot of bartering if you’d like some! We’ve had some ourselves and you can’t half bake some great sponge cakes!

Did you know that there’s a broadcasting weather station out on Hilbre Island?

Well, if you’re interested in the local weather then bookmark this page as it displays the latest readings taken from the weather station on the island.

The image pictured here is a screen capture that I took just after 7.30pm so it seems that the time is an hour out. I can’t say it feels like 16.6 degrees either, but it’s been a grey old day today so perhaps it just feels cooler! A data archive is also available via a link from the page for the more technically-minded of you. There’s a webcam too.

Thanks to Steve Armitage for providing the link on twitter the other day.

Long before we had just a handful of energy companies whose prices keep on going up and up (and up!) Hoylake was serviced by its own gasworks.

The Hoylake & West Kirby gasworks (pictured) was located on the Carr Lane Industrial Estate and in 1885 the company provided gas to 125 customers. By 1915 the company had 3,319 customers.

HoylakeJunction.com reader Carolyn McCrae and her husband have kindly gone to the trouble of creating this pdf document (open here in new window) of a scanned brochure produced in 1927 by the Hoylake & West Kirby Gas and Water Co. An updated system of coal-fired gas production was officially opened on December 14, 1927.

Fred Banks, mentioned in the document and pictured below with Betsy Banks at the official opening of the new gasworks, was Carolyn’s grandfather!

Note the logo in the document for the old urban district council. I guess two of the three local landmarks are the Column in West Kirby and a local lighthouse. But was was/is the third item?

Do you think that there are any listed buildings in Hoylake? Care to have a guess at what they might be?

Now that English Heritage allow access to and searches of the listed buildings database, finding out is rather straightforward.

Here are the Grade II Listed buildings in Hoylake:

Drinking Water Fountain

It’s great to see the drinking fountain as an entry! The water fountain had looked more than a little tired, neglected and somewhat rusty before a complete restoration programme was undertaken in 2008. You can’t drink from the fountain anymore but I do know that there’s a blue water pipe with a stop-end underneath the fountain – I’ve got a photo of it somewhere. Prior to being restored, the fountain was painted black and yellow and has previously been polar blue. I’m willing to be corrected, but I’m sure that there’s still a commemorative plaque to be fitted on the canopy? Full listing details here.

Hoylake Railway Station

Hoylake’s 1930s Art Deco station is a worthy inclusion and an obvious choice. The station buildings were refurbished in advance of the 2006 Open Golf Championships. If only the sign on the platform looked like this. Full listing details here.

Church of St Hildeburgh

Not a building that I’d have thought of as being listed. The large church at the top of Stanley Road received some repair works just over a year ago. Inside the church are two commemorative plaques for those who lost their lives in WW1. Full listing details here.

Valentia Road Lighthouse

Completing the list is arguably the most obvious Hoylake landmark. The former upper lighthouse in Valentia Road is a popular Hoylake landmark for photographers (and point-and-clickers like me!). The building is now a private residence and the owners have for the last few years wrapped lights around the old lighthouse at Christmas. Full listing details here.

For more information about old and significant buildings in Hoylake take a look at the Hoylake Conservation Area website.

My own limited knowledge of what might constitute listed building consent has predominately come from watching old episodes of Homes Under The Hammer, but I wonder if the original section of the old Hoylake Lifeboat Station could / should be listed? Something for the busy volunteer team at the forthcoming Hoylake Lifeboat Museum to pursue perhaps?

A small team of the Hoylake Lifeboat Museum has a task to photograph exhibits for curatorial and research purposes. The volunteer team writes:

We are also compiling, for the benefit of visitors to our Museum and website, a slideshow of images of Hoylake, its fisherfolk and holiday-makers, the Lighthouses, the sea-front buildings and their developments to provide our main exhibits, the ex-RNLI Lifeboats Chapman and Thomas Corbett, with historical and contextual background.

We think it important that visitors should leave not only with personal views and, possibly, memories of what it is like to be a lifeboat crew member but to have some feeling for what part our two boats played in the history of Hoylake and the effects that Hoylake had upon our two boats and their brave crews.

Do any members of Hoylake Junction have any images that we may include in our collection?  Proper acknowledgement will be given.  Images that appear on our website will be reproduced at a size and resolution to enable their proper viewing but not copying.  It is, of course, important that the images sent to us should be of the highest quality possible as it is sometimes impossible to make improvements for the purposes of screen viewing at any resolution.

If any members of Hoylake Junction have any images that they would care to let us have for viewing, contact us via our website.  Furthermore, any relevant objects that your members might care to loan us for display or imaging and return would be appreciated and acknowledged.

++Ends++

So, can you help? If so, you can contact via the new Hoylake Lifeboat Museum website.

Nigel Rose writes:

I was fascinated to see the two images of Hoylake YMCA on Hoylake Junction because during my part studies into dance bands on the Wirral I have come across adverts for dances in the ‘YMCA Hall, Hoylake’. The following bands played there between 1928 and 1930, hope this is of some interest.

Corona Dance Band (1928)
Crosville Syncopators (1929)
Alf Hassall’s Silver Beach Dance Band (1928, 1929)
Jack Hale’s Hilbre Dance Band (1929)
Frank Johnston’s Embassy Orchestra (1928)
Lloyd Bros. Band (1930)
Melody Five Orchestra (1927)
Samoa Dance Band (1930)

I have also come across dances at the following venues in Hoylake:

Hoylake Institute – George Armstrong’s Broadway Dance Orchestra (1927)
Hoylake Parish Rooms – Westlake Dance Band (1931)

Does anybody have any more information on these old bands?

I’ve seen a few chaps free running over walls, railings and benches along the promenade quite a few times. Last week a couple of them were using camcorders to capture their jumps over and on to walls in Meols Parade Gardens.

Free running is also known as parkour and you can read more about it on wikipedia.

I’ve had a very quick search on youtube and while I’ve not found anything published recently, this video (with music soundtrack) from 2009 demonstrates what’s involved. Since that video has been shot the sand banked-up against the wall has gone. It was removed as part of the exercise to stop wind-blown sand blocking the road – as captured here.

Vaughan Williams “found” this shipwreck some 400 yards off Hilbre Island at low tide on 16th April. Vaughan says the shipwreck is covered is seaweed and marine growth and the rudder is around 12 feet long.

Does anyone happen to know anymore about this wreck? Please leave a comment if you do.

Darren Jones of Hoylake Evangelic Church and manager of their website writes:

Throughout April, Hoylake Evangelical Church is celebrating its 50th year in Hoylake with a number of events such as old friends’ reunion, coffee morning, and photo display. The main event will be at the Hoylake Community Centre on 16th April when there will be a brief look back at the last 50 years and a talk from one of the area’s most gifted speakers, Bill Bygroves, on “A Passion for Life”.

Even more exciting is that the church has outgrown its current building between Chapel Road and Hoyle Road, and will be trialling meeting for Sunday Morning services at the Hoylake Community Centre from May.

Ray Trainer, current pastor, said, “These are exciting times at Hoylake Evangelical. Not only can we celebrate 50 years of God’s faithfulness to us we’ve also seen tremendous growth in recent years causing us to out-grow our building. We’re all very passionate about the Hoylake area so it’s fitting that we should be trialling bigger accommodation at the Hoylake Community Centre.”

All four of the church’s past and present pastors will be conducting services on the four Sundays in April. More information is available on the church website, www.hoylakeevangelical.org.uk.

Background
Ray Trainer has been the pastor of Hoylake Evangelical Church since the Spring of 2007 after relocating from Leamington Spa. He worked for many years in various technical and managerial roles for IBM. His wife Sharon is originally from Southport. They have four teenage children.

Bill Bygroves is the pastor at Bridge Chapel in Garston and is well known for his Christian and compassionate work at home and abroad, often connected with football.

www.hoylakeevangelical.org.uk

As I suspected, the article and photos of the old Meols Infants School has jogged a few old memories!

The above photo is of a 1938 Meols School football team – click on that photo for the names of the players. Many thanks to Charles Colcutt for sending in the photos.

Additionally, Katy Kidd writes in:

We moved to Meols in Summer 1981, and our daughter Barbara, who was 4 years old, started in the first class in the old school. Her brother Alex started two forms above her, in Elwyn Road.

I could not believe that such a building was in use as a school….outside loos, and rain dripping through the roof when it rained. However, I did think that learning how to position a bucket to catch drips was a useful skill to acquire…. ( it was, for camping holidays !)

Barbara had a lovely teacher, I think she was called Mrs Baker, who somehow managed to cope with the conditions. I think the second class were there also.

Things got really bad during that winter, 1981/ 82. There was a lot of snow and ice, and I think there were frozen pipes and no water at the school at times.

Anyway, I am sure that it closed the following summer, 1982, and the children transferred into the main school in Elwyn Rd. The building was used for a while as a hall…..I am sure we went to several birthday parties there, before being demolished for the new development.

Pat Johnson (nee Kerr) writes:

Your Meols school photo brought back many happy memories of Miss Cochrane, Miss West and the unforgettable Mrs Smout when I went there in the 1930′s.

When I was about five, my grandma had proudly made me a new dusky pink dress with a flared skirt. One day I stood too close to the open schoolroom fire and can still recall the smell of scorching wool that resulted. I was more frightened of going home with the charred result, than any of the more severe consequences that might have occured – can you imagine the uproar that would have caused with ‘Health and Safety’ today?

(I think the only consequence was that my grandma had to buy more wool and re-knit the damaged panels)