Now, we do still have independent food shops, but there aren’t many of them.
So here from sometime in the early 1980s, is the wet fish shop on Wilbraham Road.
I have no idea exactly when I took the two pictures but judging from the tree, it will have been winter.
At first, I thought it might have been Mac Fisheries, but this was further up the road closer to the bank, and anyway may have closed by the time I took the picture.
This shop was which was Inshore Fisheries was at 482 Wilbraham Road and the place still sells fish although it trades as Out of the Blue.
And as you do, I went looking for references to Inshore Fisheries, and found a wholesale company of that name, which operates across the north.
I know that our shop was doing the business in 1969 and with a bit of research should be able to establish when they opened and when it changed its name.
Of course, given that they were there in the early 1980s, there will be people who remember them and can tell me some stories.
But for now, I am equally intrigued by the shop owned by Mac Fisheries, which was at 468 Wilbraham Road.
It was part of a chain of fish shops started by Lord Leverhulme in 1918, whose original plan had been to purchase the Isle of Lewis and resurrect the Scottish fishing industry, using the island to land fish from the fleets and then move them to Fleetwood where the fish would be processed and then sold in his shops.
The plan was later centered on another island and proved successful with the company buying up independent fishmongers to create chain.
By the 1970s the business was less profitable and in 1979, the company was sold on and the fish shops closed within months.
All of which leaves me with the shop that survived, and a hope that someone might recognize themselves in the pictures and get in touch.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; shopping for fish on Wilbraham Road, circa 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
I have no idea exactly when I took the two pictures but judging from the tree, it will have been winter.
At first, I thought it might have been Mac Fisheries, but this was further up the road closer to the bank, and anyway may have closed by the time I took the picture.
This shop was which was Inshore Fisheries was at 482 Wilbraham Road and the place still sells fish although it trades as Out of the Blue.
And as you do, I went looking for references to Inshore Fisheries, and found a wholesale company of that name, which operates across the north.
I know that our shop was doing the business in 1969 and with a bit of research should be able to establish when they opened and when it changed its name.
Of course, given that they were there in the early 1980s, there will be people who remember them and can tell me some stories.
It was part of a chain of fish shops started by Lord Leverhulme in 1918, whose original plan had been to purchase the Isle of Lewis and resurrect the Scottish fishing industry, using the island to land fish from the fleets and then move them to Fleetwood where the fish would be processed and then sold in his shops.
The plan was later centered on another island and proved successful with the company buying up independent fishmongers to create chain.
By the 1970s the business was less profitable and in 1979, the company was sold on and the fish shops closed within months.
All of which leaves me with the shop that survived, and a hope that someone might recognize themselves in the pictures and get in touch.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; shopping for fish on Wilbraham Road, circa 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
No comments:
Post a Comment