Ardrossan 1910 - image question

[Hughie]

This is my favourite old photo of Ardrossan. I'm wondering what that tall pole like thing at the top right of the street is. Anyone got any ideas? You can click to enlarge it further.

[georgeflemingard]

Yes Hugh, a great photo, I have this one in my collection. That could easily have been our wee gang 30 years later. The Photo was taken almost outside the tenement where I lived , which is two doors down on the right hand side, just off picture. I'm sure the horse and cart is the Rag and Bone man, Cant remember his name but he was still doing the same job when we were kids about the same age as the kids in the photo, thirty years later, he was an old man then, and probably had a different horse.

[georgeflemingard]

Sorry I meant to add, I don't know what that tall pole is at the top of Glasgow street, but the one on the left near the boy is one of the old Gas street lamps, I remember when the man used to go round the streets with a long pole and light up all the lamps.

[Hughie]

Hi George, Notice that it looks like only one of the boys has shoes on. How soon we forget that many of us roamed around in bear feet as kids too - it seemed so natural in the good weather.

[John Donnelly]

That pole seems to have a diagonal side support at the right. Could it be some kind of pile-driver. It seems to be right next to the Caley bridge. What might they have been building there in 1910?

JD.

[Hughie]

I think you might be on to something there, John. But my thoughts are, why would they pile drive after the bridge was in place? Perhaps to add a central support? But I can't recall if there is a central support on that bridge as it only spans two tracks.

I do know from my experience as a wee boy playing on the railway banking there beside the Plazza (Sp) just yards from Mick Kelly's bookie's hut, that it was pretty sandy - perhaps piles were needed for that reason.

[ardrossanrentboy]

Is it possible it was a Semaphore pole for signalling, maybe for the trains or shipping?

http://www.nilesdepot.org/centerville/semaphore.html

[meekan]

I have been wondering since I first seen that photo many years ago what the shop is on the right hand side. Not the grocers on the corner, but the shop down from the corner. I know there was a cobbler who worked in a hut in a pen near there.

[ardrossanrentboy]

I have been wondering since I first seen that photo many years ago what the shop is on the right hand side. Not the grocers on the corner, but the shop down from the corner. I know there was a cobbler who worked in a hut in a pen near there.

My faulty memory is about a guy called George ........ same age as me whose family had a shop about that spot - was it not also the front of Hughie Filshie's Winton Dairies ... maybe that was slightly further down.
George ..... very tall, dark haired, had something to do with domestic appliances for a while, also had a wee domestic appliances shop in the bottom of the now demolished high flats on the high road from the Glue Factory in Greenock through to Port Glasgow and worked in collaboration with Findlay Cummine when he was also plying that trade. I'm sure he also had a Vintage Leyland Van sitting in a back court of a flat just south of Winton Dairy Bottling Plant.
George ...... ??? that's going to keep me awake for a while tonight. Mac ... Mc .... now just relax, make a cafe latte ... and who knows !
at one time he also had a fishing boat - small - local
Gottit!
Agnew ( I think - anybody else know Big George ?)

[Hughie]

Could it be L Cook above the door? I know when I was growing up there were a few Cook families in that location, including member Robert Cook now in Canada living next to George Fleming. And his cousins George and Marjorie Cook who left for Australia C1949.

[Penny Tray]

Under the heading SHOPKEEPERS AND DEALERS IN SUNDRIES the 1886 Business Directory show an ALEX COOK having his business in Glasgow Street. Unfortunately a street number is not specified.

[down south]

Much more to the point PT, this page of the 1903 directory shows one James Cook, grocer, listed at No 176 Glasgow Street, which I would guess corresponds with the address we're looking at:

http://digital.nls.uk/directories/brows ... e=fullsize

The bigger grocer's further up on the corner, which is the one that later became a branch of Murchie's, at that date belonged to Daniel Macara.

Susan