Memories of Lancaster

Henrys. Market Street.

I used to work at Henrys store, in the stock room. It was my first real job. It was a great old place. In the cellar was a secret passage way to the castle, bricked up from when there was a farmhouse there, I was told.
Christmas time was fantastic with Father Christmas and the grotto, and Father Christmas was my grandfather before I worked there - I sat on his knee when I was small and didn't know it was my grandad, how's that! I loved that place. British Home Stores rebuilt on the site and I worked for them for a while too. Allan Holmes.

chapel

Each week, as a 15 - 16 year-old, I used to cycle from Morecambe on a Sunday morning for an organ lesson at the chapel of the Moor Hospital. It was uphill there and downhill home. My teacher was the organist there, also Director of Music at LRGS, and my lesson started after the Sunday morning service. As I progressed I was allowed to play the recesssional after the service. Every few years I come back to look at that magnificant building (the Annex) and think of all those thousands of people, staff and patients, who kept that sanctuary alive - a city within a city - which care within the community cannot now hope to replicate. I regret its demise and the safe haven it provided for so many people.

Williamson Park Gate House

The 1881 census shows my grandfather (John Smart) and his family living in this house.  He was the Landscape Gardener of the park.