Market Street, Tottington

This are 2 old photographs of Market street in Tottington.  The first picture is a hand coloured tinted version of the second one. I have given both of them the Photoshop stuff. The colours in the first are not mine. They were already on the picture. I suspect the colours may be reasonably accurate as the pictures have been in the family quite a while.

 My Guess this is at the high point of the Village opposite to where the Coop stands. I do not remember it, I also guess that it is dated about 1900. However I do recall a picture house, Movies to you and me standing in its place. I went once, some sort of soppy film about a man on the run visiting his pregnant wife in hospital. A paper shop stood in its place later and I believe a health centre now stands there. As you carry on to the right the road forks at what was the Printers. The left fork is Turton Road - goes to Bolton, Affetside, Edgeworth. The right hand fork goes to Greenmount, passes Brookhouse and would go to Holcombe and Ramsbottom. The village centre is about a 10 minute walk from Brookhouse.

This picture is from the same spot. The view is down Market Street towards Bury. Bury is about 3 miles distant.

 Whether the picture is from the exact same time I do not know. If you look closely you can see Club Row labelled. Further down on the right hand side of the road, the Wesleyan church was to be built. I think the church would be visible. The shops on the left when I was young ( The ones I remember!) were a greengrocer/fishmonger - Read. I think the old owner was called Frank. He was grooming his son for the top position! The left-hand side of the shop was fruit and veg and the right hand side was fish. Their daughter Helen was killed in a road accident.
It shook the village and my Grandmother(Jane Dunn) cried too.. My Family were very close to the Reads. My grandfather Frank was up at 5.30 every morning bar Sundays to collect the fish from the fish shop. My Aunt cooked it, I also recall my mother cooked it as well. For a few years the house stank of cooking cod. No surprise I had trouble making friends. A little further down was the butcher. I believe he was called Sam Smith. He had been in the Guards, I was told that he had quite a distinguished war record. He was the tallest man I had ever met, but as a 7 year old everyone was tall! He had this walk in fridge. If he wasn't really quite a jolly chap, he would have been seriously scary! He seemed to take great delight in sharpening his knives, hacking stuff, and of course there was always blood down his apron. A proper blue and white striped one.

Tram on its way to Tottington from Bury. The road to the right goes to Kay Gardens. In the gap behind the two trams is the Rock, which eventually disappears to Walmsley and Rochdale. To the left of the photo is a statue of Robert Peel and also the parish church. The Two Tubs is also there. The advert on the front of the tram has Geo. Brown. He had a hardware shop in Tottington opposite the library, which had been Tottington Hall. I believe one of his sons took over (Basil). I used to play with his two sons Nick and Tim

The same tram nearing its destination. The library is on the right hand side. On the left is the Gas Board shop. A little further up is the post office. It was split into 2 parts. The front of the shop was a sweet shop - one of my favourite places. Further inside was the post office proper - manned I believe by a chap called Brian. The tram had not far to go - anothe 200 yards brought it to an island turned right round and headed back to Bury. This is still used as a bus terminus now. I turned round infront of the "Hark to Towler" pub. If you continued down the road it brought you to Tottington station.

Not sure where this is. There is a shop called Clemshaws there. More research needed.

There is always a need to update. There are 3 photographs of Trams below. I can just about recall the trams from my childhood. The tram rails were certainly there for a long time after the trams departed. I actually believe some of the old lamposts still survive even now.