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| Extracts from
'Prescot when I was a Boy' by Arthur S.
Roberts [Published 1987] |
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Arthur
S. Roberts
PGS 1922-1926 |
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Continuing
along High Street beyond the Hope Street
opening, the next building is the Hope
and Anchor Hotel. This commodious
establishment abuts on what was the
picture framing business of Mr.Harland,
whose wife taught geography at the local
Council School. The Preston family lived
in the adjoining house, and next door to
this was the tailor's shop of Messrs.
Roberts and Bromley. Jack Saggerson's
garage and taxi service carried this
block to its end at STorth Court, beyond
which was the Grammar School and its
playground shielded by a wall and iron
railing. When Thomas Eccleston
offered the land for this school, an
error on the part of the surveyor
resulted in more land being available on
the south side of Hackley Moss than was
intended. On hearing that the old school
building was unsafe and inadequate,
Eccleston offered a piece of land twenty
yards square. The error occurred when the
surveyor mapped out his plan on an area
twenty-five yards square. The school was
transferred from its old site (opposite
the Church), where, according to a minute
in the records, it was described as being
unsafe, 'due to the proximity of
increased vehicular traffic passing its
door'. The changeover took place in 1759,
and the Grammar School was housed at this
new site until the present building was
erected in 1924. The first two years of
my time at Prescot Grammar School were
spent in this building and the places
annexed. After the transfer of the school
to the new premises the old building was
used as a clinic. This was later
demolished and is now one of the many car
parks in Prescot.
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Royal Hotel yard was a broad expanse at
the top of Derby Street, which I believe
was used for stabling when the Royal
Hotel was a coaching station. This was
before my time, but I remember when it
had the Assembly Rooms and two cottages
at its northern extremity. I recall that
the Ormandys and the Shuttleworths were
the tenants of these cottages. What the
Assembly Rooms were originally used for I
do not know, apart from balls and social
functions, but the upper floor
accommodated Forms 3A and 3B of the
Grammar School at the time when I joined
the school in 1922. In those days, and in
fact until the new school in St.Helens
Road was opened, it was necessary to
deploy certain of the lower forms of the
school to venues up and down the town.
The Assembly Rooms housed two of these
forms as did the Wesleyan schoolroom and
the Parish Rooms. Constant changing from
place to place for various lessons, and
the time taken in getting there,- reduced
the time allowed for lessons. However,
due to the inadequacies of the school
buildings this constant movement was
inevitable. From
the King's Arms, the road to St.Helens
branches at right angles from High Street
and Varrington Road. A grocer's shop
appears to have stood on the corner, but
my earliest recollection was of Joe
Smith's greengrocery which adjoined the
newsagency of J.Edwards in High Street.
In 1913 Joseph Burke's cookshop was next
door, and this was later occupied by the
Molloys, whilst John Fowler's
hairdressing saloon was on the other side
of this.
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The
latter was taken over by the late Bill
Birchall who used to cut my hair when I
was a boy. An incident which I well
remember, and which proved the
authoritarian nature of the schoolmasters
of the day, occurred on this very spot.
It was a Saturday morning, and on leaving
the barber's shop proudly displaying my
newly cropped and brilliantined head, I
refrained from putting on my school cap. There
appeared to be no one about and it was
Saturday, so I nonchalantly made my way
towards High Street when a stentorian
voice accosted me with the words, 'Boy,
put that cap on'. It was an unwritten law
that members of the Grammar School when
outside school premises must wear caps at
all times. I recognised the unmistakable
voice as belonging to the headmaster,
Mr.C.W.H.Richardson, and suitably
chastened, I hurriedly donned my
offending headgear, and hoped that the
incident would be forgotten. lot so, as
at assembly on the following Monday I was
hauled out by the Head who asked if I was
ashamed to wear the Grammar School cap. I
wonder what the reaction of a scholar
would be today?
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| Farm land worked by
Mr.Metcalfe reached from the St.James
Road side of the Lane Ends back along
St.Helens Road towards the town centre.
This was enclosed by a sandstone wall,
broken only by three cottages and the
entrance to the farmhouse until it
reached the eastern side of Cross Street.
The building of the new Grammar School in
1924 took a fair proportion of this
farmland. The cottages half-way along the
road were demolished, and the farm house
became the residence of the Headmaster.
This in turn was pulled iown, and the
wall continues unbroken from Lane Ends to
the entrance to the school and
playground. Five houses stand between the
school yard and Cross Street, the next
street off St.Helens Road. Beyond this
was an old established public house, 'The
British Soldier'. |
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