Market to restore fortunes of Runcorn's Old Town

By Runcorn And Widnes Weekly News on Jan 29, 09 12:53 PM in 2000 onwards

STEPS are being put in place to revive Runcorn's flagging Old Town shopping centre with a street market in April and May.

The market in Church Street will start at the corner of King Street extending probably as far as the Wetherspoon pub.

The street market could become a regular feature every Tuesday between 10am-4pm, and, hopefully, will attract an estimated 25 stalls.

A working party has been set up to look at the problems facing market traders and Liberal Democrat councillor Sue Blackmore assures us they are doing their very best to ensure new initiatives bring in much-needed customers.

The town's relatively new market is, of course, tiny by comparison with its counterpart across the river and would fit into one small corner of Widnes Market.

But the size of the old town market place is only one part of the town centre problem. Today, it is seen as no more than a district centre and lacks diversity in almost every field except foodstuffs.

That said, we should welcome any moves which might breathe new life into the shopping triangle where there are few people mingling around once the morning shoppers have disappeared.

The borough council, through its town centre manager Paul Smith, who has been in the post for about two years, published its first booklet, "Welcome to Runcorn Town Centre", pre-Christmas, helped by traders' chairman Gary Shaw, a popular figure at Sherwin butchers.

The booklet is a colourful, highly professional offering, and, in the words of Paul Smith, its purpose is to highlight just a few of the many small businesses which have been established for years.

"When shoppers used to think about Runcorn town centre as a place to visit," the town centre manager notes, "they thought first of its charity or fast food shops but this has changed with an ever-increasing range of retail, food and other businesses now sited in the town.

"Now, for example, you can buy your weekly shopping or purchase a new guitar, see a show, visit a gym, visit the butchers, bakers, florists or even buy a new car - and that's without visiting the market!"

Could the Church Street market bring in as many people as Frodsham's Thursday market? Maybe not. But as butcher Stephen Sherwin and Gary Shaw both say: "If we get more people down here it will be a good start."

Church Street in the past
IT IS not difficult for oldies among us to picture the Church Street we knew in the austere 1940s or the more relaxing days of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when such stores as the splendid Runcorn and Widnes Co-operative drapery premises held pride of place near the High Street end of the road.

It's somewhat more difficult, however, to visualise what it was like in the late 19th Century and early years of the 20th Century.

In those days shops and pubs stood cheek by jowl in a mishmash of widely varying one-man or one-woman businesses.

Even in the 1930s Duckett's fishmongers retained an air of Victorian worldliness and come Christmas it did a roaring trade in meat products, with turkeys hanging out at the shop front. Late shoppers would catch bargains.

Pre-refrigeration, the goods were all perishables and the proprietor had to dispose of his stock by late evening on a Saturday night.

Remarkably enough, even in the early Victorian era Church Street boasted what might be deemed a little market. This became established in and around the Barley Mow pub. Farmers would come from across Cheshire and their meat, veg and cheeses would be on display.

The pub is one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture in Runcorn. James Blundell owned the premises for 30 years, from 1841-1871.

Runcorn, of course, has something of a tradition when it comes to markets. The old market in Bridge Street opened as far back as September 1856. It's Italianate design was the work of the then town surveyor, Mr Barker.

Historian Bert Starkey tells us its meat, fish and poultry products were regarded as excellent and they attracted large crowds on the opening day.

Crowds of sightseers also came to see the gas lighting and by 10pm on a Saturday the market was so densely crowded business very nearly came to a standstill.

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