This Started With The Name Wharton

A Memory of Oxton.

Adams had a poultry farm in Duck Pond Lane (left hand side of Sainsburys). They lived in a big grand house at the bottom of Woodchurch Lane; it fronted onto Prenton Road West. There was a plaque on the outhouse door relating to Whartons the butchers (no relation to me). Reg and Freda Hinton went to lodge there for a while, ironic, as Reg Hinton was also a butcher with his shop in Grange Road West.
I went to the old St Saviours school, my aunt and uncle (Molly and Ted) were caretakers for the parish hall.
I had an aunt (Maud) who lived in 12 Holme and another (Ett?) in the cottage to the right (now demolished) and another (Poppy) in the corner house, next to the lane at the side of the Swan Hotel. Walking from Woodchurch Road, along Holme Lane, you could see to the right a meadow rising up; this was Purdy's farm. Not turning up to to the right (that went up to the little arno) this became a cart track, known as the Flat Lanes, leading to another junction at a stile. To the right, Townfield Lane, straight on, a very narrow path to Noctorum, to the left over the stile, into a field, the path leading down to a pond, then to the railway embankment through an arch to other fields. Going back to the junction in Holme and heading up to the little arno, half way up on the left was an entrance to an army establishment? and looking in the bushes and ditches you would find hand grenade shells and other military items; tin hats etc. Opposite to this were the open fields leading to clay quarry and brick works, to the east, Duck Pond Lane, the north, Holme Lane, to the west, heading to a small cottage, lane coming off halfway up Holme Lane, then to the south, Newish houses in Woodchurch Road and further down the Swan Hill Dairy (Co op I think).
going back to St Saviours School, our head mistress, Miss Foster, who appeared in a local paper a couple of years ago, for having left the area to the States, got married (very late in life) and I think it was stated that she was 102. She had given me the ruler many times across my knuckles (well earned). I also remember teachers such as Miss Jolly, Mr Kay and a new Mr Davies.
Next to the school was the parish hall; on entering there was a room to the right that was used as our school dinner room, then later we used the jubilee room, housed upstairs, in an extension at the rear of the main hall. We moved there because our old dinner room became the bar and refreshment area for patrons who attended all the ballroom dancing on Saturday nights. My Aunt Molly plus family made tea in the side kitchen, this was also served in bar area. Every Saturday night there was a dance on, on cold winter evenings there would be a knock on the kitchen door and our local bobby would come in for a warm and a cuppa. The hall was used not only for dancing but for school plays, amateur dramatics, for any local function. I remember a rabbit show having been put on.
Opposite the school was a small hall used as a venue for the boys brigade.
Heading down to the junction of Storeton Road and Birch Road was our sweet shop, (now a hairdressers). She sold penny lollyices. To the left of the shop lived an Arthur Davies and a bit further to the right a Joyce Herring, who also attended St Saviours school. Going down Birch Road you came to a junction and turned right, arriving at a small estate of prefabricated bungalows (prefabs). If you kept going straight on, you came out in Storeton Road. Go over the road and into open fields, then through a gap in a line of hedges, behind this was a big pond (an old or not so old bomb crater). Back to Storeton Road, head to the Haflway House pub, stop, go across the road into a small woods only to find, in the middle, a big house that had been hit by a bomb in the war, and a further fifty yards, another bomb crater. When these bombs exploded they threw huge chunks of clay into the air and across the area, landing and sticking to the gable end of Marys Cottage at the bottom end of Woodchurch Lane. New (then) houses have been built with a doctors surgery on the corner of this once wooded site.
Head back up Storeton Road towards the the arno, half way up on the right is a terrace of two storey apartments, flanked each side by the old oxton properties. This site was once a small garden nursery with a few riding stables, guarded by an angry German Shepherd dog, behind the low but wide farm gate ( I used to cross the road well before that, only to cross back again for the sweet shop, only to cross again to get to school). I hope this is of interest of a small part of Oxton.
One last thing, my father, Frank Wharton, who was born and brought up in 12 Holme Lane, had a pigeon loft and bred racing pigeons. One of his famous winning pigeons was called Oxton Lad. This pigeon was painted in oil by a famous artist who specialised in painting racing pigeons, his name was Andrew Beer; I have painting now hanging on a wall in my house.
Many thanks.

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