Newchapel, Staffordshire

Mow Cop as a Playground

Of the ten years spent living in Biddulph I and my siblings, Pam, Linda, Albert  and Wendy, spent many hours playing amongst the rocks and the grass  around the folly. Many battles were fought among ourselves as to who was to be the King or Queen of the Castle.  Fond memories ....
Chris Chester.

All uphill

Our Dad used to take us for a walk up to Mow Cop Castle on a sunny Sunday. We would set off from Talke with our bottle of pop and a jam butty and walk along the canal for a while then through the lanes in Scholar Green past the Three Horseshoes then up the steepest hill to the Castle. We... [more]

St Johns the scary

As a child I was terrified of the churchyard, we had to walk past it to get to Wilson Way where my Nan Lizzie Grocott lived. It wasn't so bad in the summer but in winter when it got dark early we would get off the bus opposite the Church and it would loom up like a big dark monster as... [more]

Fishing equipment and Cakes

Every year we would go to Pooles on the High Street to get yellow fishing nets so that we could go and collect tadpoles from ponds around the area. We would deliberate for a good while over what colour nets to get but we always ended up with yellow because our Dad said they showed the tadders up best.
Tiko Bakery... [more]

Talke - A Forgotten Village

As you proceed north along the A34 towards the Cheshire border you will approach Talke traffic lights and on the left and right side of the road there are two areas of grassed land. This grassed area was once the village of Talke which was demolished during the mid 1970s.
As it is today, you would not realise that this was... [more]

Child of the butler/cook

As a child I grew up close to Biddulph Old Hall and spent many hours playing around it and listening to stories of an old lady who was a neighbour and who had grown up at Biddulp Old Hall as the child of the Butler/Cook. She was very proud of this and spoke of a red chair in the shape of... [more]

A wonderful Christmas time

We arrived in England on 15/12/1988.  My hubby Stephen and I were to be married on 7th January 1989 in Biddulph. I was amazed at the size of Heathrow Airport and for the first time in my life, I saw an English taxi, the ones we only see in pictures in South Africa.  Mom Ivy, Dad Roy and sister-in-law Helen fetched... [more]

The Old Vicarage

In the 1970s I lived in the Old Vicarage and remember being able to view the church from the house.  My fondest memories are a lovely gentleman named Tom who used to take me to the shop each week when (I think) he collected his pension.  He would always buy me Smiths Salt and Shake crisps - and even to this... [more]