Claughton Road, Birkenhead

I was born and brought up in Claughton Road with my mum and dad, 5 sisters and 2 brothers. We lived where the fire station now stands. The was a cinema across the road on the corner, The Claughton then renamed The Astor, went there many Saturday mornings with sisters and brothers. Spent our summer holidays in Birkenhead Park nearly every day, then on special days we'd go to New Brighton. Would walk to Seacombe and Egremont. Attended the Emmanuel Church every Sunday. Cole Street Primary was attended by all my sisters and brothers. Although didn't have any mod cons in our cellar house, I had a very happy childhood there. With house on the busy Claughton Road, we would use back door through alley to Bentinck Terrace where we would play with the many other children. Before the Methodist church was built, the 'bomdy' was also our playground, returning home many a time for a plaster for a grazed knee! I haven't even got one photo of our old house or even Claughton Road as it was then, it would bring back happy memories if someone reading this has any photographs. Remember all the old places fondly, O'Kells, the penny dip shop and the sweet factory all on Exmouth Street. Parrys, Kellys, George the Barber, Vickys fruit and veg shop, Quilts the fish and chip shop and the Jones who ran the newsagents/sweets shop, lovely people, all on Bentinck Street. We use to ring the bell at the Electric works and run away (Wood Street I think)! Loved playing out with huge skipping rope with lots of other girls, hopscotch, two balls, head stands against walls, film star guessing game, singing and dancing! I loved my childhood! If you lived near Claughton Road, or anywhere on Bentinck Terrace, Bright Street, Sun Street etc. please write your memories here.

Remembering Claughton Road through 1950s and 1960s
I remember Claughton road quite well. I spent my early years up till I was four, living upstairs in one of the bedrooms in my Nan’s house with my mum and dad. You mentioned your old house stood where the fire station now stands, which replaced the old one in Whetstone lane. That new fire station was built in the early 70s more onto the corner of Claughton Rd. Just a few years ago it was part demolished and rebuilt, and now stands more to the top of Exmouth St.
My Nan’s house was also on the site of the new station, it was the first of two on the corner from back Exmouth St onto Claughton Rd. If I’m not mistaken your old house must have been next one, the last on the end on the corner of Claughton Rd Exmouth St. near the traffic lights. They were the last two before Exmouth St. they were only ones built in sandstone. After the 1960s demolition, the whole corner would be the site of the new fire station.
My Nan’s last name was Bennett. They were a big family, eleven of brothers and sisters all to become my aunties and uncles. By the time I was born there was only my auntie the youngest still at home. She was only five at the time.
The side wall of the house was in back Exmouth St. running in line the waste ground (the bomdy) where the church is now built. I used to play there; I remember a scraped wagon rusting away which everybody would climb on fighting to sit on the torn seat and pretending to drive. Occasionally on sunny days I was allowed out the back door of the house which lead on to Back Exmouth St. Often I would wander into Fox St to play but got fed up because it was always shaded even on bright days, making me feel threatened from kids I didn’t know. The back yard of the sweet factory was a couple of doors from the back of my Nan’s yard. I was often given sweets as I wandered in, as the door during the day was always opened.
The sweet factory, if it’s the same you refer, stood round the corner. It was the first shop in Exmouth St. You could buy sweets just like any sweetshop.
My Mother told me once she worked part time there just after the war until I was born. In the late 1950s it became a magazine/ news agents, eventually becoming the Ekco milk bar by the mid 1660s. Next to that I remember Roberts’s tool and hardware shop, a hair dressers, Okell’s, the old Exmouth pub, Marriott’s cart hire and so on.
There was a corner sweet shop opposite my Nan’s house at the Claughton Rd Exmouth St traffic lights. I never did get to find out the name and never crossed the busy road just to buy sweets. The Music Hall pub was on the opposite corner.
By the time I was just approaching my 5th. birthday myself, mum and dad moved to our own house in Fore Street which stood off the bottom of Exmouth Street before Conway street.
We continued to visit my Nan most weekends until she moved to Leasow in 1963.
I never really noticed them houses after she left, although they were still standing. I was too preoccupied being a teenager in the mid 1960s. By then the whole area was just a childhood memory with no meaning.

I remember very well the places you mentioned including George’s barbers and the chippy in Bentinck St. That was the first and only time I seen some people bring two plates to carry the chippy diner home. One plate for the chips and the other cover up to keep the chips warm. The rest of us would just have our chips wrapped in traditional news paper. Mustn’t forget the Electric works (Manweb) in Bright St. The building is still there, I think it became a warehouse. Since the new development you can now the building from Bentinck St.
Good memories of Birkenhead Park, Seacombe, Egremont, New Brighton, New Brighton baths and Livingstone St Bath’s .
Just for the memory of Fore Street where I grew up and spent the rest of my childhood. I can still remember as only yesterday, travelling up Exmouth street towards Claughton Road, passing the next street Crown Street, then Moon street, Rose street, Sun Street, and finally Gladstone Street.
Those happy times have now passed and will never return. Neither will the cellars and the outside toilets. (Or trying to get through the back yard in the snow to get to toilet, during the winter of 1963.)

Just remembered the sweet factory was called Bryant's the same as the glazing firm that used to be in Argyle street in them days. I think there still going but are now in Walasey.