Many thanks to Ian Davies for sending me a batch of scanned old postcards. Having just been twisting my neck for nearly 30 mins viewing them all the wrong way up, I’ve hopefully picked one that will jog a few memories!
This almost Dickensian scene is apparently of a horse and cart outside the Lighthouse Inn, presumably dropping off more pale ale and bitter for the thirsty fellows inside! I don’t think I’ve heard of the Lighthouse Inn before? It seems that the Lighthouse Inn was demolished to make way for what is now the car park in front of Holy Trinity School. Or maybe Mansell Antiques was the old inn? You can make out the old school house behind the horse and cart. Those cottages on the left are now the site of Hoose Court. You can place the location quite easily because the timber work above what is now the video shop is still there and the window on the front of the old school house hasn’t changed at all…
The shop where the woman is stood (now the property agents) was once a cobblers of course.
Feel free to leave your comments below!
The Lighthouse Inn was demolished c. 1960 and there is indeed a space where it once stood, forming the entrance to the car park. At the same time, the original Anchor Inn, and the shop adjoining it, were also demolished. I believe some sort of planning deal was done whereby if both were closed and demolished, then it was o.k. to build the Blue Anchor instead.
Was the cobblers “Dodds” ?
Certainly remember the “Light” but only as my grandad (died 1947) and Uncle John used it. You used to step down into it for some reason, and in its later years there was a small 3 foot hight lighthouse model (illuminated?) on a shelf above the main entrance on Market Street.
Fletcher’s fish and chips were next door to it as I remember. And on the Meols side of the primary school was a Wet Fish shop with marble slabs outside, then Sampson’s newsagents.
yes it may be dodds i used to work there when i was around 16
Hi Ian,
I think the fish shop went under the name of Harley and Miller or something very close to that. I used to deliver newspapers for Sampson ( who used to pay better rates than other newsagents did to their paper boys) the highlight being on a Friday if my memory serves me correctly when the Hoylake News and Advertiser was published.
Very interesting postcard. Apparently my granddad who was a drayman used to drink in The Lighthouse all the time. It is possible the child like figure standing beside the dray is in fact him, he was very small. He was also alleged to be the only drayman who could turn his dray around in school lane, although why he would need to escapes me.
I think Mansells was a television shop called Traces.
Thanks Judith – I’ve heard of Traces before, I think they had several shops in the northwest.
Hi, The TV shop to the left of the lighthouse at that time was called Warbricks. My Brother Owen McShane was a TV engineer there throughout the 60’s. TV’s in those days of course were black & white a quite unreliable; therefore it was a busy job calling to customers homes to change valves that had broken. It also meant that we were one of the first homes to have a TV and then a colour TV in our road.
Opposite the Lighthouse inn behind the houses was a builder yard called Hough’s which moved to Carr lane when the houses were pulled down. My father often sent me here for a bucket full of ready mixed mortar, sadly not available these days.
Love this picture of ‘old’ Market Street, my mother’s family lived in that row of cottages from about 1920 until they were demolished so that Hoose Court could be built. I also believe that my GG grandmother, after her husband Henry Bird died, married a William Davies who was the landlord of the Lighthouse Inn.