Witham Road
Article by Geoff Howard reproduced from the Advertiser 1998
Curtain up!
The Empire Cinema will forever be remembered as Billy Shaw’s wherever Yethert (Edward) Roughley was employed to keep order among the youngsters. That wasn’t easy amid the excitement of a matinee prize, drawn from the numbers on the admission tickets, often with a football for the winner. On performance weekdays, two on Saturdays, the entrance money dropped on to a tray by the entrance.
In Stanley Coronation Park, Wee Barker ruled the roost. “Lo and behold anyone trespassing on his precious grass,” Walter Oakley recalls. The cinema is long gone, little remains of the original park, but both are inextricably woven into the history of Witham Road. As is Charlie Mason’s pop shop. “As a boy I used to call in and was given glass ollies. These were the glass marbles that were used to seal the drinks, saved from broken bottles,” says Walter who takes a keen interest in Skem’s history.
Esteemed
Nowadays, few roads boast neighbouring firms of importance to such a wide area as does Witham. T.W. Garner ironmongers,founded in 1865, is one of the esteemed shops of West Lancashire, let alone Skelmersdale. And a few yards away, H. Hardman founded in 1926 and the oldest funeral directors in these parts.
More later of these two businesses … and their link in years gone by … but with Walter’s help let us walk the Witham Road of yesteryear. “Up to the 1960’s, Witham Road was made up of cobble stones for half its length. In fact it was so badly kept it was more like a series of holes surrounded by cobbles. The other half was just compressed earth, good in summer but bad in winter,” he says.
Mr Bowdler at Skelmersdale Post Office, now Hollows and Hesketh accountant’s, was the first property encountered on entering Witham from the Sandy Lane end. Then Johnny Riley the coal merchant, nowadays Hungry Horace’s, sandwitched between Garner’s and Hardman’s. Ellis Warde the Ormskirk brewery had an off-license, Billy Ollerton a hairdressing business, now Northwest Property Agency.
Skelmersdale British Legion was once based in Witham Road before their move to Hutton Road then to the former Engine Hotel in Liverpool Road. Don’t forget this is old town clubland, the Comrades Club still a thriving part of the Witham Road social scene. Nellie Dugdale, daughter of the local chimney sweep, ran her sweet shop in years gone by. And Mr Ritson made a living by baking bread in his private house, delivering it by bicycle.
Easter
The Mission Sunday School, formerly the fish market, stood in Witham Road before its demolition about 25 years ago. “The first service was on Easter Sunday morning, April 6th, 1890 when Rev Samuel Gasking was curate. It was extended in 1906 to accomodate the bible classes taken by Jim Rhoden of Rainford and later two billiard tables were installed. They were used extensively by the youth of the Sunday School,” says Walter.
And no-one will forget the Foster Memorial Congregational Church which started in 1878 at Rigby Row off Witham Road. What a splendid building, originally an iron chapel erected in Witham Road in 1879, replaced by a new building at the turn of the century, but sadly demolished some 20 years ago.
Park concerts were music to the ears …
Stanley Coronation Park was christened after Skelmersdale voted for Lord Stanley in favour of Lord Leverhulme as Member of Parliament. It had a Bowling Green, bandstand, tennis courts, the ‘banana lake’ aptly shaped, garden and lawns and children’s play area. Now aged 86, Bill Price recalls: “Very occasionally Skem Prize Band or the New Temperance Band would give a concert on a Sunday in the bandstand and it was grand.” He is one of many who remember a dandy Wee Barker in flat straw hat with a rose in his buttonhole, supervising in the park. “When he had finished his daily duties, he would move over to the Bowling Green and take twopence an hour off anyone who wanted to play.”
In 1997, Garner’s is still synonymous with quality service, a shop where you can buy absolutely anything. It speaks volumes that although there have been various owners since the last of the Garner family worked there in the 1930’s, all have retained the original name of the shop. Among them the owner for the past 16 years Dave Oakley. “At one time I believe you could buy miners’ tins here, even gunpowder for the pits. Nowadays although we are ironmongers, we do quite a bit on the decorating and plumbing, while maintaining the reputation the shop has always had for good service.”
Furniture too figured highly on Garner’s itinery years ago, and those premises now constitute Hardman’s workshop. To clarify, H Hardman funeral directors is run by founder Harry Hardman’s son Geoff, but Harry Hardman building contractor’s by Geoff’s brother Harry. Five chapels of rest now front Witham Road with anything between 300 and 350 funerals catered for in the course of a year. And Geoff is hopeful that a third generation of Hardman’s will eventually take over the family business. Keeping old Witham Road traditions alive you might say!