The Three Towns in old directories

[down south]

No, Angus, that didn't happen until 1933, when the present Old Building at Sorbie Road was built and the Academy moved into it. Up till then, the Catholic children of Ardrossan still had to continue to go to school at St Mary's in Saltcoats.

According to the Academy history, the enlargement of the South Beach school in 1899 was set in train after the local Ardrossan School Board took it over; they had inspected it and found the accomodation was totally inadequate...just four classrooms, with two classes being taught in each ! Up till then the Academy had effectively been an independent school run by a committee of trustees, elected by those who had subscribed to have it built. The school board also at the same time eased out the original headmaster, Mr Charles Duguid, in favour of the more highly-qualified Mr Butters, much to the indignation of many ; but they softened the blow by promptly re-employing Mr Duguid as the first headmaster of the new Winton School.

Susan

[down south]

Returning now to the Ardrossan of the 1903 directory; and the population of the town has grown since 1881 by about half as much again. You can certainly see this reflected in the residential section ; not only in the increase of the list, but in all the new streets that are getting a mention. Since the last directory Eglinton Road has been almost fully built up, and so too has the nearby Ardrossan Caledonia Road . There has been lots of development around the Plantation, sparked by the opening of South Beach station, with South Beach Road, Sorbie Road, and the near end of Barrie Terrace; and off Glasgow Street Hill Place is new, and the Winton Street/Seton Street area.

Some new manufacturing concerns are the Ardrossan Oilskin and Waterproofing Co; the Ardrossan Color Works ( thus spelled ! ), paint manufacturers of 105 Glasgow Street; and first mention of a famous Ardrossan business, the Metallic Manufacturing Company. One or two other well-known local small businesses have also begun: James Allison the slater; and Lambert the plumber, forerunner surely of Lambert and Reid's.

Some familiar Italian families have now also arrived. Instead of Rocchiccioli at 3 Princes Street, we now have the Agostinis, who will one day be of Castlehill Vaults fame; while in Princes Lane there are the ( misspelled ) Piacentinis, who sound as though they might well be already in the fish-and-chip trade. While although Louis Pierotti's name doesn't ring any bells, his address does: 99 Glasgow Street is the future Castle Cafe.

And those cycle shops , as I mentioned , are proliferating. There's Sampson and Edwards' Pennant Cycleries, at 205 Glasgow Street;George Baird, draper at No 58 but cycle agent at No 60; and John Ewer, tobacconist and cycle agent, at No 54. By 1909 his business was named Firefly Cycles and clearly doing well:

And here's another trader, a saddler this time, also getting in on the act:

( These adverts also come from the Academy book, so no copies please. )

Susan

[down south]

Some of the other Ardrossan shops in the 1903 directory can be seen in old photos available online. We've already discussed this one: http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 12#p130712

In this one, there's an excellent view of the shops occupying the ground floor of the Masonic Hall ( still in use as the Town Hall at that date ) : Ebenezer Currie the draper at No 42 Princes Street, and James Crawford, stationer, newsagent and confectioner, at No 44:

http://www.mylargs.com/Ardrossan/pages/image7.html

Another Currie appears in this one, showing shops in the stretch of Princes Street oppsite the Eglinton Arms Hotel : Hugh Currie, bootmaker and sailors' outfitter of 15-17 Princes Street. Next door at No 19 we can also see the shop of George Grainger, hairdresser and tobacconist.The Hon Thomas Cochrane, whose election headquarters is proclaimed in the shop next door in the other direction, was Conservative MP locally from 1892 until 1910, so that's not so much of a clue as it seems for dating the picture exactly.

http://www.ayrshireroots.co.uk/Towns/Ar ... es_st2.jpg

There's also another excellent view to be seen of the bottom end of Glasgow Street at just about exactly this date , in the McSherrys' book " Old Ardrossan " ( of which I'm sure many of you have a copy... ). I'm sure we've displayed it on 3T in the past,and briefly discussed it, but I can't find it, or any other good online version. So I've reproduced an extract from it here :

In it you can clearly see and identify A Duncan and Co, grocer, wine merchant and ships' stores suppliers, on the corner at 39 Prince Street; and just about make out as well,if you know they're supposed to be there, Adam Dunlop the hairdresser at No 5 Glasgow Street; James Dickson, bootmaker at No 7; and David Sharpe, saddler, at No 11. In the original you also get a clear view of the Chemist and Druggist on the opposite corner at No 41 Prince Street , which the directory tells us was William Wallace at that date ; according to a post I came across in " On this Day " ( while looking for the picture ! ) , he took over the shop in 1896 from Andrew McInnes.

Susan

[down south]

Turning to Saltcoats , the population there has also grown considerably, from just over 5000 in 1881, to just over 8000 in 1901. And the directory makes it clear how the town has been spreading to accomodate them. Since the last full directory in 1886, Caledonia Road has been completely built up, and Argyle Road is well on its way; so too the lesser streets around, like Franklin Road and Waverley Place; Galloway Place, Stanley Road and Stanley Place. Among notable residents who have moved in to Caledonia Road are those well-known local headmasters Mr Butters at No 68 , and Mr Duguid at No 74 ( later to be the home of Mr Paterson the manager of the RBS Bank ). The grocer's shop on the corner of Stanley Place is occupied, by one Archibald Watson :

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Saltco ... 74.89,,1,0

And there is quite a little colony of shops opposite the Public school...not just the single shop of Macpherson's as in our day. The plant nursery by the Caley Station is also there: John Gunson in " Caledonia Place " ( not a name I've ever heard before for that lane. )

Numbering has progressed also to cover Ardrossan Road and Manse Street; enough earlier residents remain for comparison to pinpoint some of the " Cottages ", and to reveal that the houses on the Brae have been reallocated from Manse Street to Caledonia Road. This row of houses heading up towards the bridge on the other side meanwhile, I would guess must have been among the last in Caley Road to be built, for they are listed by name and haven't yet been given their numbers. You can just make out the names of a few of them still, above the doors, on Streetview, like this one, Willowbank :

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Saltco ... 63.72,,0,0

Down by the seafront Montgomerie Crescent is complete, and Winton Circus is almost so. Some houses are occupied by affluent residents,such as the recently-mentioned Robert Blakely, proprietor of the Saltcoats Laundry and just about to become Provost of Saltcoats ; but some have been given directly over to the holiday trade, and more soon will be, such as " Blackford ":

The equally recently-built Sidney Street too is filling up with lodging houses, as is Windmill Street, where new buildings have begun to replace old cottages at the seaward end.

There are plenty of new houses and new streets in other parts of town too, but you don't get quite so much of a sense of them here, since they largely aren't commercial and most of their residents are less affluent; just the odd mention of the likes of Union Street ( created in 1883 to " unite " Springvale Street and Raise Road )and Wellpark Road, Gladstone Road and Victoria Road, gives a clue to all the new building there has been in the areas round Raise Street and Canal Street. Fortunately, after a gap of forty years or so since the last maps in the 1850s, there are some new maps available in this period to give us a much more complete idea of how Saltcoats ( and also, from the same source, the other towns ) has been growing:

surveyed in 1895: http://maps.nls.uk/view/82867041

and 1909: http://maps.nls.uk/view/82867044

Susan

[down south]

And now ,let's take a short stroll round the town centre of Edwardian Saltcoats.( Don't worry, this will be more like three weeks than three years.... )

So many postcards are available of the town at this date, we'll be able to spot quite a few of the shops in the directory as we go. And the top of Countess Street is a particularly favoured view at that period, with the impressive new Town Hall building and the smart recently-created open space in front of it to be shown off. It can be hard to pin down the dates of all the various similar pictures available, but I think this one from Oortoons is pretty close; you can definitely make out " Senior and Co " above the door of the big shop second from the left, which in our day would be the Garden Grill Restaurant:

And sure enough, at No 39 back then, as the directory tells us, was Senior's musical instrument emporium; here's an advertisement for it from 1909:

Further down the street we find a shop that was still going on the same spot in the 1960s, and famed then for its toys: Patrick's hardware and fancy goods at No 9 Countess Street. Interesting to see that even back then there were two separate but similar Patrick's businesses ( though surely you'd have to imagine they were from the same family ), which may explain why there were two different " branches " in 1960s Countess Street; as Sam has told us here , the other one was still at 4 Dockhead Street up to the fifties, before moving into the bigger shop next to the Town Hall and opposite the little Patrick's.

There are some other shops too that already have the same function in 1903 as they will in our day, though under different names; No 7 , the future home of Howie's, is Harper's bakery; No 15, R C Neil's grocery in the 1960s, is Campbell Bros grocery...which must have been a thriving concern, since they have another shop across the street at No 12.

Further down on that side, just before the corner, at Nos 4/6 is James Gibson's refreshment rooms...you'd have to guess that may be a forerunner of the later big Gibson's bakery in Dockhead Street. Maybe the bakehouse that used to stand here originally belonged to this business.

But it's the confectioner's shop next door at No 8 that catches the eye: the Lanni family have arrived in Countess Street ! Though not yet in their future home at the Savoy Cafe ( aka the Three Blind Mice ), which was at No 3 and in 1903 occupied by a fishmonger.

Susan

[down south]

The Lannis may be here, but though there are several other Italian businesses ( all of them confectioners ) listed for Saltcoats in the directory, none of the rest of the names as yet are familiar.We have Trichi and Moscardini in Dockhead Street; Emilio Pieri in Bradshaw Street; and Basilio Pieroni, doing well with a shop in Chapelwell Street and refreshment rooms in Quay Street. The Moscardinis, Pieris and Pieronis were still to be found elsewhere in Ayrshire in the 1967 phone book , but there's no such later trace of the Trichis.

Bradshaw Street has quite a few more mainstream shops than it would boast in our day , when it had become more of a shopping backwater; a butcher and a baker, a draper and a fancy repository, a bootmaker and an ironmonger, as well as four confectioners and a fried fish shop. It also has the Co-op; and now it has finally become, as it would be up till the 1970s, Stevenston Co-op...and is probably by now in its modern building. Ardrossan Co-op still has a presence in the town, at that moment at No 24 Hamilton Street; it will be later in the decade that their splendid new premises on the corner of Green Street and Vernon Street will open.

Quay Street too still has a good quota of smaller shops; a few of them from what must be somewhere near in date are pictured here here, but I can't identify any of them with ones in the directory ...or indeed read the names of them at all . Perhaps someone with een like a hoolit can make out something more than that one of them is a bootmaker ? I would guess these buildings were probably long gone by my day, with much of the street as it used to be having disappeared in the 1950s or earlier.

The bakery listed at Nos 11/13, though, would probably have been using the bakehouse that was later Howie's. And just about opposite that would have been Archibald Scott the saddler; a long-established business described in great detail in this 1909 advertisement. Note the prominence given to Boys Scouts' equipment, though the movement had only just got going with the publication of Baden-Powell's " Scouting for Boys " in 1908; its popularity really must have spread like wildfire.

And the business would still continue for another half-century yet; for surely the Thomas Scott, saddler, listed in Dockhead Street in the 1921 directory, must have been the next generation, and as Sam has told us in the past that saddler's next to Fullerton's was still going up till the end of the 1950s.

Susan

[sweet caroline]

Yes Susan ,
It was Archibald Scott 's son Thomas Scott c 1880 Saltcoats. In the 1891 Census they lived in Quay Street.1901 Thomas is at 34 Hamilton St,.along with his parents and siblings.


SC

Edit-That photo of Quay Street,has the house my father-in-Law was born in 1926.Upstairs

[down south]

Thanks for that, Ellen. You obviously have a good idea of the spot , even if I don't !

By the way,just noticed while looking in the McSherrys' book " Old Saltcoats ",in the caption to a picture of local scouts, a comment that emphasises the role of Scotts the saddlers in supplying scouting requisites...and it also gives the very interesting information that their Quay Street premises was in Clytus House, Betsy Miller's old home.

Susan

[down south]

Turning the corner now into Dockhead Street, at No 1 we find the first incarnation of the famous Corner Duncan's drapery store. The business reputedly was founded in Quay Street in 1824, but it didn't make it into the directories until the 1895 one, when R Duncan was listed at 86/8 Dockhead Street ( the very spot where Duncan's Menswear would later be, though they're not there in this directory ); this shop of the next generation, John Duncan, obviously represents another step up and may even have been newly built.

It certainly wasn't without its rivals back then; directly over the road at No 2 is John Dunlop, tailor and draper, and that would be the case up till at least the 1920s; from the costume of the people I would guess that this photo, which shows them both, dates from somewhen more like that date. No other shop signs, alas, can be made out, but next to Dunlop's will certainly be Patrick's, as mentioned above.

Move just a little way along the street, and we come to Wallace's, printers and stationers; which in 1903 has premises on both sides of the street...the familiar shop at No 12, and also what I assume is the printing works over the road at No 13, which you can see on the right of this picture.

http://www.mylargs.com/Saltcoats/pages/image10.html

It's a genuine early 1900s view this time. Many of you will have seen it in " Old Saltcoats ", and certainly in the book it's easier to make out the names above the doors than it is in the link above; though even there I can't read what's written on the building past the left-hand Wallace's shop at no 12,the one that will later be the Albion Bar. Next door to the other, right-hand Wallace's we have the shop of Mrs Janet Love, fruiterer and confectioner; beyond that the name above the door looks like William Barrie, but unlike Mrs Love he doesn't appear in the directory. The various signs and writings on her building include mentions of Chocolate and Ice Cream, and Ice Creams are offered too on the upper wall of the next shop beyond Barrie's, which must be the one on the far corner of Green Street.

And here is that shop, in a closer view; a picture we've looked at several times in the past, and which also looks to date from the early 1900s. This is No 17 Dockhead Street, later Ross' Dairy; and as Westendcafe told us when the picture was shown before, at one time it was a cafe belonging to the Cavanis. Something the 1921 directory confirms; but in 1903 they hadn't yet arrived, and it was another Italian, Thomas Trichi, who seems to have first opened the cafe there.

Next door at No 19 we can see Walker's chemists shop , already mentioned in an earlier post. A couple of shops beyond it the name above the door definitely ends in "son"; that would accord well with James Dickson, bootmaker, listed at No 23 in 1903...and would match well too with the future, for that is where Easiephit's shoeshop would be.

And on the other side of the street to our left is Thomas Orr's grocery, which at No 20/22 occupies the shop that would later become Lipton's. The buildings immediately beyond on that side don't appear to have become shops yet, and that too matches well with the 1903 directory, where there's an absence of those numbers in the list.

Susan

[down south]

A little further along the street, and looking back from the other direction, we come to the scene of George Washington Wilson's photos. And though, as I concluded earlier, those were taken a few years before, some of the shops here can still be matched up with ones listed in the 1903 directory . This one gives the best general view along the street:

http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 710#p99710

Some aspects of the scene have definitely changed by 1903; the shops on the far left, of Maule and Wyllie, aren't listed there any more, and Wyllie's has apparently moved up the street to No 83. But the barber's pole marks out a still-existing hairdresser's at No 39, belonging to Adam Dunlop; as we saw earlier, he also had one at the bottom of Glasgow Street in Ardrossan.

Over the street someone else who has a shop there is here too; William Wallace the chemist, who occupies the shop at No 44 which will one day be Cox's. But it only occupies part of that very-recognisable building as yet, because No 46 is separate and occupied by William Verrier the watchmaker; you can just make out the little watch above the frontage.

Next shop beyond that at No 42 is already Thomas Baillie the butcher's, but set back as it is you can't quite see it; instead the view beyond is of what many will remember as the Hosiery Shop. In 1903 this houses at No 38, Miss Jessie Wilson, books and toys; and at No 36, Mrs Agnes Ritchie, draper....and as I noted in my post at the link above, you can indeed make out some advertising for " caps " and "hats " on those hanging signs when you use Aberdeen University's best zoom closeup. Unfortunately access to their " digitool " seems to be out of commission today, but when available it can be reached through a search for George Washington Wilson at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/library.

Coming back now to the nearest shops on the right, next to the watchmaker's, we must be looking at Nos 48, 50 and 52; for there are three separate signboards above the doors, though alas none of them are readable. No 48 of course is the future home of Wilkie's; and already in 1903 it's occupied by a grocer, one George Brown ...from whom history relates that the first Mr R C Wilkie took over the shop in 1907.

To the right of that the next two shops in 1903 are Bryden the tailor and George Patrick's drapery; interesting, for that is surely the same George Patrick who had the better-known hardware business.

And then we have to finally move out of the picture, to note that there's a fishmonger at No 56, which there would still be up till the end of the 1960s; and the well-known Nelson's bakery at No 58, which also survived into later years, though I'm just too young to remember that one.

While of course at No 62 we have that famous fixture of Fullerton Brothers, ironmongers. As this advert from 1909 shows, they still at this time sold a very wide range of goods, and among other things had joined the many who were catering to the cycle craze:

Susan

[down south]

As we continue to move along Dockhead Street, a few more familiar names are beginning to appear. There's Thomas Taylor the chemist, though at No 80 he's not quite arrived at his later address. And surely it's the same Thomas Taylor who is also practising as a dentist in Ardrossan Road, in this 1909 advertisement:

A few doors along we find another fondly-remembered name, Charles Grubb the butcher; and not far past that , A K Young the grocer, who still had a shop hereabouts up till the end of the 1950s. And now we're approaching another spot frequently commemorated in postcards; the junction where Dockhead Street, Chapelwell Street, Hamilton Street and Windmill Street all meet, at Saltcoats Cross. There are several views of it online from these turn-of-the- century times, but this one is the best and clearest:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayesterd ... 2/sizes/o/

Straight ahead of us, where Chapelwell Street meets Dockhead Street, is the long-established Crown Hotel; the proprietor was Alex Goodwin at this date. The ground-floor shop on the corner ( familiar to us as Fleming's greengrocery ) is a confectioner's, and the name above the door on the corner is McAusland; which matches the 1895 directory, where Mrs McAusland ( both confectioner and fruiterer ) is listed at 89 Dockhead Street. But in 1903 that address is occupied by Mrs Maggie Arnott, fruiterer; so this photo must date from a few years earlier than 1903.

Over on the right of the picture, the shop nearest us is the one on the Windmill Street corner, and the " A Hamilton " sign is clear to see; this is Alexander Hamilton the grocer, a business dating back to at least the 1861 directory as grocers and grain merchants, and one that would continue there until 1923 ; according to " Old and New " the building itself was put up by the original Alexander Hamilton in 1875, and known as Hamilton's Buildings.

Next door is the butcher's shop of John Kirkwood ; there's a great picture of this on the back cover of " Old Saltcoats ". It was still a butcher's up till the end of the 1960s, as J&T Thomson's. The front is festooned with what look like rabbits; and the next shop past this is similarly decorated with baskets and the like. This was James Aitken the ironmonger at No 106; though you can't read the name in this picture , you can in several of the other similar ones online showing this spot.

There must incidentally have been some modifications to the numbering of this part of Dockhead Street at some point; because these three shops are definitely those that were Nos 110, 112 and 114 in the 1960s, but at this date they are Nos 106, 108 and 110.

Susan

[down south]

Standing where we were in the last picture, outside the Temperance Hotel on the corner of Hamilton Street and Chapelwell Street, we would be just in the right spot to catch one of the earliest local " Here-y'-are " horse-drawn buses:

http://i.imgur.com/o7gOqNd.jpg

As mentioned in the brief history of local buses to be found here, among the leading owners of these were James and Andrew Murray, listed as carriage hirers at Vernon Street in the 1903. They must have been doing well for themselves, for in the Stevenston directory we find them living at the prestigious address of Mayville House.

A few other familiar names can be found listed in Vernon Street; Borland the coal merchant of course, whose family business had been in the directories already for years; and Frederick Small, spirit dealer, who will surely be the ancestor of those who were still running the Rabbie Burns pub decades later ( see here ). Round the corner in Green Street, the great upheavals that created the new police station and Ardrossan Co-op haven't happened yet , but some aspects are familiar. Peter Reilly, butter and egg merchant, is to be found at No 22; and at No 6 is James Baillie, draper...surely a forerunner of Baillie's carpet shop later to be found at that address.

Up at the other end of Vernon Street, on the corner with Chapelwell Street, Jacob McGill has the familiar cobbler's business. And further down that street, the old smithy ( see http://www.threetowners.com/old-new/chapter-13/) is still going in the hands of the latest of the Burns family, Crighton Burns, who also it seems doubles as a grocer. Interestingly, there's also mention in the directory of another blacksmith, John Breckenridge, at Springvale Place, giving some confirmation to the memory of Iain Bain here.

Also doubling as a grocer it seems in 1903, is Robert McLachlan, whose better-known butcher's business continued down to later days. ( I was hoping here to re-show you the wonderful early picture of that shop that there used to be online on the s1 saltcoats site, but alas all those s1 sites, except for Jobs, appear to have recently been abolished... )

Susan