Just Seven Cottages

Having lived here for the last 25 years caused me to dwell a little on this brick-linked row of seven so-called Victorian cottages built  in 1856.  Their pocket handkerchief front gardens were originally edged with cast iron railings until severed for use in munitions in 1914.  Some of the cottages still have their original little garden walls with amputated iron stumps clearly visible and over which they have shiny new railings and gates looking very smart and "Chelsea Mews".
                                            Up until 1856 most of the houses in the village of Poynton had been built for, and sometimes by, the coal mining community.   But in 1845 the steam train came to Poynton and its main line was linked to the coal pit tracks and the seven terraced cottages were built principally for the railway workers and their families.  Right next to the railtrack two semi-detached buildings were erected here on Lostock Road, one the Station Office and the other the Station Master's home.   There was a level-crossing to get from the Midway area, as it was known, across the track to Lostock Hall Farmlands to the west.   One historian commented at the time on "the hateful railroad"  presumably regretting the move from the rural to a more industrialised livelihood.  Nevertheless, it was agreed that the miners and railroad workers experienced a better standard of living than the textile factory workers or agricultural labourers.



Lostock Terrace was its given name then and if you look carefully it is possible to still see this name on the old road sign above the middle house - No.10.   Now the sign for Lostock Road is on my wall at No.2.  Why the name was changed I have no idea.

I also would love to know why each one of the houses is a different size.  Was the house I live in the last to be built and perhaps there was room left over to make it the largest?  Or was it the first to be built and the builders ran out of space as they progressed along the row?   Why were they then numbered from 2 - 14 rather than 1 - 7 or 1 -13?  Is the No.13 a clue due to the suspicions around that number?  There could never have been houses built opposite because Poynton Brook runs parallel ... these questions continue to intrigue.

Upon completion the cottages were rented out to their workers by the Railway Authority and sold in 1912 to a private purchaser until eventually one by one they were bought by individual owners.  No.4 was the last one still being rented out at a peppercorn rent up until 1994 by "old Tom" (Worthington).  He had some tales to tell.  The outside lavatory, no hot water, mangle, tin bath, still evident then, and the pigeon coop told their very own stories. 

I wish I still had that strip of garden apparently allocated to each cottage back then and stretching to the rear for 80 yards.   I can see in my mind's eye the green bean rows, onions and radishes alongside the sweet peas, carnations, hollyhocks, autumn chrysanthemum and dahlias with, maybe, the pigeon loft at the end as bird racing was a great pastime in this area back then.   "Old Tom" mentioned above, still had some of his favourite pigeons when we came to live next door in 1987.

I can visualise Victorian mothers in their day clothes, skirts and petticoats trailing the cobbled London Road, basket on their arms as they walked northwards to the grocers, butchers and drapers.   Up until 1998 the Midway Bakery was just a few yards away and was in thos days a thriving little shop for those who were not making their own bread but also, later on, for the new motor-bus drivers stopping at the corner of Lostock Road terminus for their break.   It is now an antique pine shop.    The women may well have turned south towards the farms to purchase eggs if they didn't keep their own hens,  or maybe for vegetables which they didn't grow themselves.   It was not unusual for households in Poynton to keep their own pig as bacon provided a hearty breakfast for miners.

Midway children would not have had to walk so very far to get to school as this was located on Park Lane and known as Vernon School - later to become the Folk Centre and now called,  I believe, The Youth & Community Centre.   The public house was where The Vernon Arms is now situated and the local Smithy next door and so it is apparent that the Midway district lacked little and was more than a small community on its own, rather the hub of Poynton village.   No.2 Lostock Road was (and still is) known as The Town House - travelling from Macclesfield via Adlington this was virtually the first residential building reached when entering Poynton.

The fustian works which operated from the still-evident property on London Road South opposite the Antique Pine Shop was a thriving business which provided hat trimmings for the prodigious Christy Milliners.  There was also a smaller family business of fustian workers functioning from one of the Lostock Terrace cottages.
                   
There were a number of toll bars along the main turnpike London Road - which runs at right-angles to our cottages - one of which existed at the Lostock Terrace junction.   Until the steam trains, transportation of people and goods was either by barge along the canal or by horse-drawn wagons on the roads.   As far back as 1652 there was mention of a man by the name of  Pickford who was a carrier and certainly 100 years on there was Matthew Pickford whom it would seem descended from the same line who was a great entrepreneur and responsible for the famous Pickford Haulier Company.    He was called a waggoner then and was responsible for transporting materials for the road building operations.  He then widened his experience and eventually there was little that the Pickford family were not prepared to remove and replace.   The infrastructure was growing rapidly.

The railway had dictated the emphasis in Poynton up to 1887, thus when the Railway Station was moved to its present site at Chester Road, so the focus of the village changed.   Now there was also a Smithy on Park Lane and in 1897 the Jubilee Fountain and Lampstand was erected celebrating Queen Victoria's Jubilee.   Fountain Place became very much a focal point which provided people and horses with refreshing water and also gaslight at an increasingly busy junction!

We learn therefore, that up until the late 1800's the Midway area had all the necessary craftsmen - saddlers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths and shoemakers.   The clogger as he was often called, worked all hours to keep the miners well shod for their sometimes dangerous work.   Often he would loan a clog or clogs overnight in order to mend the miners own ready for collection on his way to work the next day.
                       
The Smithy by 1910 was kept very busy not just shoeing horses but selling and mending the now popular bicycle.   By the early 1900's a few of the first motor-cars were around and with the internal combustion engine many changes were to be seen.   By the year 1900 the population of Poynton was around 2,500.   Shrigley's Garage on London Road South (later to become Poynton Car Sales & now flats) was busy with sales and repairs and in 1927 there were the first motor omnibuses.   The terminus being situated directly outside the garage.   Apparently about this time No.2 Lostock was operating as a sweet shop and cafe where the driver and conductor could have their refreshments.

So by the 1920's we have increased forms of traffic and we have the trains passing along the westerly end of Lostock Terrace/Road towards the main station and we also have the daily 'bus stopping at the terminus before heading off for Macclesfield or Stockport.   I expect that is why we have outside No.2,  a bench - for passengers to wait, then the waste-paper bin which even when we came to live here was a wire mesh balanced inside of a wooden frame but is now a vandal-proof (?) moulded plastic job.   Opposite there is a post box and up until a few years ago next to that was a telephone kiosk.

In 1932, presumably because of the fast increase in traffic - now there were more motor-cars, more frequent buses, bicycles and of course, still horse-drawn tradesman's wagons for delivery of milk, bread and coal, - the first speed limitations were enforced so Lostock Road had a 30 mph sign erected at its junction with the main road.   After all, this was the point at which you entered - the Gateway to Poynton.

Sadly by 1935 all the coal mining had ceased - the pit owners had expected there to be 100 years worth of coal mining and consequently the miners had to seek new employment and companies such as BUKTA, Baxter Woodhouse Taylor and later Lightnin Mixers provided jobs for many in the area.

                                        

These seven cottages have now experienced many changes and only they know how many different families have lived within their walls.   What happiness, tragedy, sadness and success have they witnessed?   The railway workers have long since gone, there are no pigeons and there have been many changes of ownership over the last few years ..... I still feel a tenderness when turning the key in my front door and experience the specialness of this, No.2 Lostock, my home.


Meg Marsden/March 2012