everysinglestreet

#everysinglestreet [17/08/29] All the roads off Grange Lane plus Gateacre Village

Graham Holland   

Stats

  • Monday 17th August 2020
  • 31 streets – Acresgate Court, Ashurst Close, Barnmeadow Road, Beechurst Close, Beechurst Road, Chartmount Way, Dale Mews, Eaglehurst Road, Elmsfield Close, Gateacre Brow, Gateacre Rise, Grangehurst Court, Grange Lane, Grangemeadow Road, Grange Mews, Grangeside, Grange Way, Grange Weint, Killester Road, Meadow Oak Drive, Oakfield Avenue, Oakhurst Close, Rose Brow, Sandfield Road, South Station Road, Station Road, The Paddock, Vyner Road North, Vyner Road, South, Woodholme Court, York Cottages.
  • Total: 727 (12.89%)
  • Remaining: 4914

Notes

This was a special run for me. Not because I was caught in a thunder storm and got soaked to the skin, but because this is the area where I grew up and lived for the first 30 years of my life.

Auntie Ella’s house was on Station Road. Ella was my Grandad’s (on my Dad’s side) sister.

Where Station Road meets South Station Road there’s a passageway which takes you under the Rella (disused railway line turned path) into Belle Vale and down to the shopping centre. Now there’s a housing estate on the other side, but when we were kids it was just wasteland.

Beechurst has no beeches, Oakhurst has a holly, Ashurst has an oak. There was no eagle in Eaglehurst.

There’s a road called Grange Weint. Weint is an old English name for a small street or way.

I think the Chair of the Gateacre Society used to live in Grange Lodge on Grange Lane. I can’t remember her name.

I made it out of Gnome Man’s Land alive.

Lots of old houses on Grange Lane near the village. Soarer Cottages and Paradise Row are on the main road. York Cottages are down a little lane and are almost back to back. There must be some sort of system for parking the cars so people can get out when they need to.

Grange Mews was originally stables.

I took a photo of the Gateacre Institute for my school friend Kevin who was a member there and went every week to play snooker.

The Ocean Fry has since been renamed, but the shutter wasn’t raised all the way so I couldn’t see the sign.

There are three pubs in the village. The Black Bull, the Bear and Staff, and the Brown Cow. Queen Victoria stands between the Black Bull and the dovecot.

If you’re looking for guitars of distinction then there’s no better place to buy them than Moran Sound.

Gateacre used to have its own station on the Cheshire Line. You could catch a train one way to the north of the city centre, or the other way to the south of the city centre via the Halewood Triangle. The passenger trains stopped in 1972, with freight continuing to run until 1975. One of my earliest memories is hearing the nighttime freight trains as I was falling asleep. It was possible to catch the train to Aigburth to visit Grandma’s.

There’s a (dog walking?) field with a curious structure in it – railings surrounding some bushes in the middle with four benches in the corners.

At the bottom of Gateacre Brow opposite the Black Bull is what was originally a brewery when it was built in the 1860s before converting into Cleggs Felt Factory in the 1920s. It’s now apartments.

Gateacre Chapel, founded 1700. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside.

I ventured along Sandfield Road and was shocked to stumble upon what I’m assuming was an old fire station and a chapel, both since converted to housing.

Seafarers Drive is the converted Seafarers Mission, and mighty fine it looks too!

The nursery at the end of Cuckoo Lane used to be a fabulous, traditional sweet shop!

Oakfield Avenue is lined with ‘posh’ houses. My Mum used to tell us that Graeme Souness (from Liverpool Football Club) used to live in one of them. She knows because his wife used to bring their dogs into the vets where she worked! Me and my sisters used to claim which of the houses we’d buy for ourselves when we grew up. Yet another plan that never happened.

The Hollies used to be a residential home before being turned into flats.

The saddest sight on Grange Lane is the former Grange Manor pub. It used to have Celebrations function suite in the basement of the side building. It was revived for a very short time as The Crying Tree, but that didn’t survive.

My friend from school Billy Fairclough used to live in Barnmeadow Road. I’d forgotten about the houses at the bottom on a pedestrian street.

The passageway from the end of Station Road through to Grangemeadow Road brings back so many memories or walking to Craighurst (primary school) or Gateacre Park Drive shops.

And to finish, a double rainbow on Springmeadow Road!

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