Friday Photo: Sandhills Circa 1930
April 3, 2009 by John · 5 Comments
A bit of a cheat this week as I’m using an old postcard (circa 1930’s) that regular reader and contributor Peter Wilson kindly sent to me. Peter says:
The last house you can in the picture in Stanley Rd is now demolished and replaced by a flats development. I think it’s called Hilbre View or something, next door to Invergarry Court anyway, and the last flats development before Red Rocks. I think the 3 orange roofed houses with a wall in front are probably the 3 houses on the right hand side of Beach Road between Barton Road and the beach.
Of course today there are no sandhills on Hoylake beach and no boats are moored on that part of the sand. In fact, you’ll only see boats moored a mile down the beach at Meols. Isn’t it great to able to see how our local coast has changed over several decades?
Oh, a question for you from another reader who worked in Dodds shoe repair shop in Market Street many years ago. Brian wants to know the name of the owner of the long-gone bike shop that used to be in that building by Holy Trinity School (and where there’s currently a used car sales business behind the building). He seems to remember that the chap who owned the bike shop also owned a local undertakers?
As a youngster in the late 70’s I used to visit the bike shop myself on my much-used, blue Raleigh Arena with my mates. I was chatting to one of them only the other night but we couldn’t remember what the bike shop was called. I’m sure one or two of you will know!
[UPDATE]: See, I knew you would know! The old bike shop was called Sammy Cattells
Possible related posts (computer generated):
ref. sammy cattells bike shop ,one day when i was a littel kid in 1946/7 ,i was going past cattells as a young man came out of the shop pushing a brand new racing bike .5 mins. later i came back just as the same man pushing the same bike back in to the shop ,the front wheel was U shaped.!!!!!
my father once told me that pre-war sammy had worked at brookland race track ,and that he had taken a morgan 3 wheel sports car out for a test and had broken the track record for that class of car
l
many thanks for your great website
i know it must take many hours of work
I love this photo and wish that it was still like this today – the sandhills have something over the wall that now dominates…..though I do realise that quite a few people would be homeless….
Yes, I loved this photo immediately when I saw it on e-bay. I would love to see sand dune formation encouraged to help tackle the blown sand problem especially in the Beach Road to King’s Gap area where the sand has really built up. It would be noice to have a more natural coastline again.
Albert Marchbank worked at Sammy Cattells. He went on to run the local undertakers. His funeral home was in our old infants school in school lane, very aptly at the back of the churchyard. He was the local undertaker until at least the 80’s, he did my dads funeral in 1984, but not sure when he retired.