Shops of yore

I think you mean Far Gosford Street? (No.69)

I think you mean City Arcade

Although I can't remember it, my hubby says there was a chip shop halfway up Hearsall Lane. My sister has come up with some information about your other query and I will put it in the Shops of Yore thread.

Yeah that`s right - the birds in the precinct wouldn`t be in cages. Just as a matter of interest was the old arcade called the City Arcade. I seem to remember Stones (?) a radio shop was there in fact I think I bought a "Dansette" record player there.

Thanks Janey It must have converted to a Chinese takeaway shortly after I moved to Craven Street. It meant that for a short period I had one chip shop outside my back door in Hearsall Lane and another outside my front door in Craven Street. Paradise eh?

J & F Stone were at 4 Market Way

I am sorry MR, my memory is hazy, but at least I got Stones right. I think I am trying to point out the period just after the war, before reconstruction started. i.e. Smithford Street, was still there, bombed to smithereens of course and if you went downhill from Broadgate, you found Woolies on your left and if I remember rightly you could walk through it and out of a side door into some sort of bombed out arcade and Stones was in that arcade (is it likely that became Market Way or was it always named so?) I`m talking about the period 1947-51/53 (away to sea training school 1951, then away to sea in 1953 - so only saw bits of the reconstruction). For a bit more local colour - continue the walk down Smithford Street, found "Johnny Bausor" butcher, where my Grandmother bought her meat, tucked in a little short bit of a street on the right hand side behind the Co-op, then on to Alwoods Atkins and Turton, where we bought our groceries on the left hand side opposite St.John`s Church.

Hi all A few more memories have come back to me about shops - in 1966 when first married we bought a lovely teak bedroom suite, two wardrobes and a long dressing table, from T. Edwards on the upper precinct near the circular cafe It cost us £58 and I still have the receipt. I believe it became Wades furniture store or maybe that was on the end and is now a book store. Spalls was also in the vicinity later on, a bits and bobs shop selling cheap jewellery, ornaments etc. In response to Dutchman's query about shops in Hearsall Lane where I lived at No 39 until I was ten, just up the road from me at around Nos 59 - 65 was Stirling's grocery shop. I used to play with Cynthia Stirley when she came with her mum and dad (they lived at Cheylesmore) and her dad used to drive a 3-wheeled vehicle which he may have used to deliver groceries. Down towards the bottom of Hearsall Lane was Eric's Alteration Tailors and my sister remembers a dress shop towards the top of Hearsall Lane possibly called Alma's. She says the shop on the corner of Sovereign Road and Hearsall Lane was owned by a Ray Shelton about 30 years ago. He repaired sewing machines and lived in Prince of Wales Road. He had financial worries and committed suicide in his garage with carbon monoxide. My my, I didn't realise there were that many shops there! Am I right in thinking there was a lovely little bakery at the top of Craven Street?

That's correct Roger, Stones was just inside the entrance to the old city arcade on the right hand side as you entered.

Pails Bakery has its own thread

Yes, prewar, 12 City Arcade, Smithford Street

Midland Red Gas street and where the h--l was that and the name of that warehouse never worried me for over sixty years and now you have me scratching my head, a guy that suffered from prickly heat, and were was Tiptons? were they tea? I walked through the city centre several tines a day through the fifties, can't remember a damn street, yet remember Butcher Row, suppose I was escaping from my mother in the thirties, trying to get closer to a woman in the fifties. My excuse.

Now my memory has been vindicated, Has anybody any pictures of Smithford Street, prior to the reconstruction? Was the fa

Smithford Street does have its own thread and there's an image of the entrance to the City Arcade on page 2 of the Food Office thread

Rob's maps : click on 1937, top left hand corner, just below Abbotts Lane