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Padgate
Padgate maps
Historic maps of Padgate and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Padgate maps
Padgate area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Padgate and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Padgate
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Padgate.
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Padgate Cottage Homes
The opening on the left of the photo is the entrance to Padgate Cottage Homes. I first went in there in 1948 as a 6 year old and finally left in 1953 as a 12 year old. The events that happened in there over those years were to shape the rest of my life. Although life in there was quite tough, you have to remember that it was tough for most folk at that time. The good memories vastly outweigh the bad memories. Good memories, including the annual 4 week camp at Knott-End-on-Sea, trips out to places like the Lakes and even as far as London to the Festival of Britain. But Christmas times were fantastic, apart from the in-house celebrations, we were invited to parties given by the RAF and also the Americans at Burtonwood. The thing is, when you live in a home with upwards of 130 children there is always someone to play with. The house straight across from the gates was my first call on bob-a-job... Read more
My Memory
I remember walking down Green Lane from my home in Eric Avenue, Padgate to Woolston with my new girlfriend in the snow just by the Cottage Homes. We cuddled together to keep warm, she was 16 and I was 17 and had only met a few weeks earlier. We married in 1958 and had two children. In 1966 we came to live in Australia where we have lived ever since. She died in 2005 and I have returned to Woolston every year since then to stay with her family in Long Barn Lane and my cousin in Fearnhaed. I am now planning on returning to live locally to be with them. Whenever I am there I travel every day between Fearnhead and Woolston down Green Lane and it has never changed. I look forward to being back there very soon.
Yesterday
Seeing this picture braught back memories of 3rd January 1951, when I, and around fifty others, ambled down this lane from the rail station to RAF Padgate, to start an 'adventure' which would remain with us for the rest of our life.
Bill.
Willow Crescent
The next turning on the right is Willow Crescent (I think it's a cul-de-sac now) if that's how you spell it. Yep, this is where I grew up, we had 1 bus, the 81 Dam Lane. If I remember right it used to turn up every hour (with no digital display as well). I had some good times and some bad, but more good. If only we could turn the clocks back, eh. I remember the local bobby dragging me home by the ear because I was riding my bike on the footpath. What a vandal I was, ha! We used to jump over the brook which was at the bottom of our garden and sneak into the L.C.C. Depot, shhhh don't tell my dad. Them were the days. Anyway I think that will do me for now. It was nice seeing Green Lane as it was even though it ain't changed that much. If you can find any photos of Padgate walking day or St Oswald's that would be... Read more
Cheshire memories
Childhood
My friend and I would await the arrival of American ships on their way to Manchester. We would shout "got any gum chum?!" to the crews. We would occasionally be rewarded by a packet of sweets being thrown from the ship. Far tastier than the English equivalent!
Ike Smith''s Hardware And Bicycle Store
My grandfather, Isaac Smith, had a hardware and bicycle shop on these premises, known universally as the 'Tudor Cottages', from some time towards the close of WW1 to the late 1930s. The premises were owned by Rylands Bros, the nearby wire works, at which Ike (also Ikey) had worked at one time (I infer from census records), and at which his oldest son Arthur later worked until 1955. He set up his business, my father told me, with the compensation he received from being temporarily blinded (for about 6 months), while working on top secret poison gas research while he was a foreman at Warrington Gas Works, sometime around 1916. The whole family, including the children, were apparently required to sign the Official Secrets Act, and my father (also Stan) only told me this story just before he himself died in 1980. At some time in the later 1930s, Rylands Bros persuaded my granddad to move out of the shop while they redecorated it, I understand, with the promise of... Read more
Happy Times
The building at the top of the picture with the advert on was a grocers called Hendrey Millings. I worked there as a young man and had my first encounter with the opposite sex!!!
