I’ve been struggling to find something for this week’s Friday Photo so I’d thought I’d offer you something different. Earlier in the year Pat Ireland lent me a copy of a really old (circa 1900) Hoylake and West Kirby directory that listed names, addresses and phone numbers along with a number of adverts for local businesses. On one particularly wet Sunday afternoon in May I spent at least a couple of hours scanning all the pages onto my computer and the advert you see here is the first one I’ve posted on the site.
Joseph Iles evidently had two shops along Market Street offering not just plain but fancy biscuits too! As I’m rather partial to a nice slice of cake I’ve no doubt I’d have been popping in to his shop 
Do you know what’s currently at 36 Market Street? It’s the Indira Tandoori
Grat picture.
To have two branches in Market Street just shows how shopping habits have changed in the intervening 110 years, people shopped very, very locally. Hoylake shops were built for this era, it is a real challenge to get the village shops to be relevbant for this century especially as there are so many of them.
By the way what is at No. 102 now?
Hi Peter
I think 102 is an accountants office, next to 3 Sisters grocers. Was a post office for a while.
In the 1960s that was Cooper’s, a well known local chain of quality grocers in the days before supermarkets took off. It had a long counter down the left hand side and of course you were served by an assistant. Another grocer my mother used was Peagrams (opposite Sainsbury’s)where Mr Black would cut the bacon for you to your preferred thickness. Nowadays bacon is always precut.
Even in the 1960s Market Street had a wide choice of grocers, cake shops, greengrocers and butchers. The rot set in in the 1970s and the empty shops were for a time all taken up by ‘antique’ dealers.
Peter you should get your bacon from Bill Page the butchers on Market Street. There all the bacon is cut in front of you. And very good it is too!
Thanks Gerry. I’ll try when next passing through Hoylake. I actually live in Edinburgh these days and the Scottish way of cutting bacon seems to include cutting off the rind – apparently only the English leave on the rind according to my butcher!
can anyone remember the grocery store THE MAYPOLE with mr Joe Mercer the football player [early 1950s] serving from behind the counter,I think he was the store manager at the time,if you happened to be the one he was serving he would always oblige his fans with his autograph. gone are the days when you would see a footballer behind a grocery counter.
I have just spoken to Nora Mercer, Joe’s widow, and you are wrong.
Joe helped out in Brewers Grocers where Culture is now, and which was owned by Nora’s family the Dyson’s.
Pop Dyson, as I called Nora’s Father, used to pick my Dad up outside the Punch Bowl on a Saturday when Everton were playingand go to watch Joe play.
The Maypole, a national shop, was run by Mr and Mrs Dawson whose son Tony died recently.
Before the war my father, Eric Johnson worked with Joe Mercer as a Grocers Assistant and lived in Church Road. In October 1936 he married Christina Buckle, her father was a Carpenter and Joiner at Cammell Lairds until his death in June 1937.
Hi Jackie, really nice to see my Nan, Grandad, and Dad Tony being mentioned by you. My Mum also worked at the Maypole for my Grandad, and I think one of my Aunties worked there for a while. We have a really nice picture of my Nan and Grandad at a company dinner where he received a long service award.
Is this the same Iles that ran a iron mongers shop in grange road West Kirby
I rember it sold dinky toys plus all manner of buckets etc (Opp the Co-op)