North West Region

My Street

On this page we will start to feature your contributions. Thank you to all those members of the NW that have sent them to nwregionu3a@gmail.com

Carole Lacey - St Helens u3a
Read the poem by our member Carole Lacey, that accompanies her photos of St Helens (on the right, or below if using a tablet or phone) My Street by Carole Lacey

Ralph Telford - Mawdesley U3A

Three watercolour paintings from walks around Croston Moss in winter.
Bakers Cabin, on what was Bakers Farm ( now The Hillocks Farm)
Think it was used for stabling Farm horses, it certainly looks like it from inside.

Jimmy’s Seat, Jimmy put the bench on the Moss and dedicated it to the memory of the tenant farmers of the Croston Estate

The three stumps/ posts. No one I know has an insight into why they are there, they are certainly useful as a marker. Do they show the division between Croston & Mawdesley Moss?

Elaine Wallwork - Ashton in Makerfield u3a

Ashton Library
Ashton Library, a Grade II listed building, was built in 1905/6 from money donated by Andrew Carnegie.
Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 25 November 1835 and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. He started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railways, bridges, and oil derricks. Further wealth came from his work as a bond salesman. At one point he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Peace Palace.

Andrew Carnegie had strong social beliefs and did what he could to support communities and charities. His special emphasis was on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research.

During the last years of his life he gave away 90 per cent of his fortune. Some say he was the catalyst for other wealthy employers to improve the lot of their workers.

The first of his libraries opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. Around 3,000 other libraries were built in America, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and Fiji. He also donated 50,000 dollars to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899. However, although he paid for the building and equipping he expected the local authority to provide the land and operational maintenance.

Despite its current structural problems, Ashton library is historically important as a good early 20th century example of a former lecture hall and library. Above the entrance door on Wigan Road, are the words ‘Carnegie Library’ and above the doors on Old Road the words ‘Lecture Hall’ can be seen. The lecture hall has long-since disappeared, the space it took up becoming a children’s library. The stage of the lecture hall stood in the area now used by the reception desk.

Despite extensive alteration and renovation over the years, many of the original fixtures and fittings can still be seen. Whilst many people know that the lecture hall had a second floor balcony with seating for the audience, fewer may know that there was a caretaker’s flat on the second floor for many years. The window of the living room of this flat can be seen from the passage between Old Road and Wigan Road.

I have fond memories of visiting my Aunt, Uncle and cousin who, being caretakers for many years, lived in the library flat.

I am the smallest in the picture taken on the library roof around 1955. Access to the roof was from the flat.

My Aunt and Cousin are on the left of the picture and my mother is standing behind me.

I also vividly remember the cavernous cellar (or so it seemed to a small child) and the chillingly spooky atmosphere there was down there.

Elaine Wallwork
Local History Group, Ashton-in-Makerfield & District U3A

Joan Davis - Hale u3a
I painted this image in oils of Dunham Massey Gatehouse in autumn. Many people walk round the park and even more in lockdown, I usually go twice a week As it’s only 4 miles from where I live, it’s a real life saver.

Barbara Craven - Glossop u3a Longdendale Trail
Glossopdale is situated in a very fortunate place as we are a train or bus ride away from the theatres, shops, and the general bustle of central Manchester, and in the other direction we are on the edge of the Peak district. There are plenty of walks to keep us occupied especially during the winter and we are able to meet in a group of 6 or if there are more we can easily have 2 groups.

View from the top of Thorburn Road by Stephen Corless, Wigan u3a

I look out from the top of Thorburn Road
And, O, what magnificence I see
From greying sky to tarmac ‘neath my feet
A vista that brings nought but joy to me.

The mast at Winter Hill points to the sky
The mound itself is shaded by the clouds
A pimple, Rivvi Pike, stand on the side
With trees surrounding, standing stiff in crowds.

Central to my large canvas there’s a hall
Whose Panoramic view opposes mine
With grounds green, foliage of reds and browns
An Autumnal forest, deciduous, not pine.

The town I love nestled below mid view
Grand monuments to those who’ve passed before
New buildings too that shows we are alive
And wait impatiently at future’s door.

The bottom and the sides are council homes
Where I would roam and wander my young life
There also lived the one who I adore
Who gave this up to come and be my wife.

What beauty in the colours I am seeing
The hues and saturations tell the story
Of life and death and life all o’er again
This, my beloved plot, in all its glory.

St John’s Toft A Watercolour by Bob Harris 2020, Knutsford u3a

St John the Evangelist is a beautiful traditional Anglican church in the rural Toft
Parish in Cheshire. It was built in 1852 and is a united benefice with St John the
Baptist Church in nearby Knutsford
There is a church hall next to the church which hosts the U3A painting group. This
painting was painted in the church hall, before the group had to cancel its activities
with the Covid 19 lockdown in March 2020.
The U3A Group is:
The Knutsford Branch Drawing and Painting Group led by Mrs Jill Board

CURLEY AND STANWAY - GROCERS AND WINE MERCHANTS
GERARD STREET, ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD
My grandfather, Andrew Curley, was born in St Helens in 1882. He married Ursula Jones in 1909 at St Mary’s, Lowe House, RC church and worked as grocer’s assistant in St Helens and in Ashton-in-Makerfield, where he moved to in about 1912.
After serving in India in WW1 he and Paul Stanway formed a partnership and bought the shop which still stands on the corner of Gerard Street and Princess Road. Andrew managed the shop and Paul was a sleeping partner.
The shop sold general groceries and wines and spirits. I believe it had previously been a grocer’s shop and, on the old maps, before the shops there were built, the site is listed as a ‘brewery’ so perhaps that is why they still sold alcoholic beverages.
The inscription at the top of the building says Bridgefoot House 1904. Andrew and his family lived behind and above the shop until his tragic death in 1934.
It is worth noting briefly the circumstances of his death. On New Years Day 1934 Andrew’s brother, Tom was at the Saints ground watching the rugby match when he collapsed and died (the whole family were, and still are, avid Rugby League fans). They brought the news to my grandad and he too collapsed and died. Both Tom and Andrew were well known and well respected businessmen and the events were extensively reportedly in the local newspapers.
My grandma and their three children (my dad and his two sisters) had to move out but the shop remained and was kept going by Paul Stanway. The name above the door was kept until Paul’s death in about 1948.
Since then the shop has been, at various times, Radio Rentals, a photographer’s, a mobility shop and now a tattoo parlour, and possibly other businesses as well.

Pat Grimshaw
Ashton-in-Makerfield & District U3A