Now I have been watching with interest the transformation of 101 Beech Road.
For more than a few years it has sat empty, still bearing the signs of when it was a grocery and off license.
During the 1980s it had another period of retail silence, and before that was a fruit and veg shop and in the early 20th century had been the grocery store of John and George Clayton.
Very soon the shop will open as our new chemist, when Beech Road Pharmacy moves from 107, which has been home to a chemists since Joy Seal started up her business in the 1960s.
I remember Joy Seal and some years ago had a delightful conversation with Mr. Seal who described the early years of the business on Beech Road and the difficulties they faced converting from a bakery.
Tracking back further into the past no. 107 seems to have been a sweet shop for a big chunk of the last century.
And that leaves me to reflect that our first chemist was run by Harry Kemp, he of Kemp’s Corner,* who opened his shop on Beech Road in the March of 1896, which in turn offers up a possible date for this row of shops starting at 107 and running down to 113.
The first entry for these four in the Rate Books is 1896.
And that takes me back to 101 and its two neighbours, which occupy the block bearing the stone inscription, Market Place, which seem to be there by 1891, and maybe earlier.
The real clue to the dates of all these shops will be the deeds, so I travel in hope that the owners of the row from 101, down to 111 will let me see the paperwork, because deeds mean dates.
So, with that in play, I shall close with those little snippets, which offer up that Truth was once the Wool Shop and 111 was briefly an amusement arcade.
And that pretty much brings me up to the time our kids knew Beech Road, which was on the cusp of change.
A change which would see the old Police Station become the Lead Station, after a while as council offices, and that amusement arcade, morph into the Royce Balti.
So that just leaves me to wish Beech Road Pharmacy a successful opening.
Location; Beech Road
Pictures; 101 Beech Road Road, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson. Beech Road, circa early 1980s, Tony Walker, and 111 Beech Road, the Lloyd Collection; circa early 1980s
*Kemps Corner, so named after Harry Kemp’s Chemist which stood on the corner of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Road, now occupied by the HSBC.
 |
| Beech Road Pharmacy, 2019 |
During the 1980s it had another period of retail silence, and before that was a fruit and veg shop and in the early 20th century had been the grocery store of John and George Clayton.
Very soon the shop will open as our new chemist, when Beech Road Pharmacy moves from 107, which has been home to a chemists since Joy Seal started up her business in the 1960s.
I remember Joy Seal and some years ago had a delightful conversation with Mr. Seal who described the early years of the business on Beech Road and the difficulties they faced converting from a bakery.
 |
| Beech Road in the early 1980s |
And that leaves me to reflect that our first chemist was run by Harry Kemp, he of Kemp’s Corner,* who opened his shop on Beech Road in the March of 1896, which in turn offers up a possible date for this row of shops starting at 107 and running down to 113.
The first entry for these four in the Rate Books is 1896.
And that takes me back to 101 and its two neighbours, which occupy the block bearing the stone inscription, Market Place, which seem to be there by 1891, and maybe earlier.
 |
| More of Beech Road, the early 1980s |
So, with that in play, I shall close with those little snippets, which offer up that Truth was once the Wool Shop and 111 was briefly an amusement arcade.
And that pretty much brings me up to the time our kids knew Beech Road, which was on the cusp of change.
A change which would see the old Police Station become the Lead Station, after a while as council offices, and that amusement arcade, morph into the Royce Balti.
 |
| 111 Beech Road, circa mid 1980s |
Location; Beech Road
Pictures; 101 Beech Road Road, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson. Beech Road, circa early 1980s, Tony Walker, and 111 Beech Road, the Lloyd Collection; circa early 1980s
*Kemps Corner, so named after Harry Kemp’s Chemist which stood on the corner of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Road, now occupied by the HSBC.
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