RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Cheshire => Topic started by: cyndy on Monday 20 October 08 20:13 BST (UK)
-
My grandfather worked for the railway ,GNWR, I think ,and lived in the station house at NORTON between 1937-1957. The old station house is now privately owned but could any tell me how I can find out when the station house was built?
Thanks Cyndy
-
Here you go! :)
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/n/norton/index.shtml
meles
-
Fantastic!! Thanks so much. I was at Norton Station House last week on a trip down memory lane with my cousins. We were able to photograph the outside of the house and have since made contact with the friendly owner.
I spent many very happy holidays there with my grandparents until they moved up to Halton village. My uncle worked in Norton signal box and I was allowed to help pull the levers that worked the signals!Grandad was a ganger on that stretch of the line.
It was sad to see the platform had gone but the pump was still in the garden.The house from the outside is little changed which was great to see.
thanks again.
cyndy
-
My pleasure! :)
meles
-
Was your grandfather's name 'Greenwood' by any chance?
-
Hi just picked up your message while holidaying in sunny Madeira.
My grandfatherīs name was James [Jim]Bate.I donīt know if this helps with your research. I have an uncle still alive who was a signalman at Norton for some years who might know the name Greenwood if you would like me to ask .
Cyndy
-
Enjoy your vacation Cindy.
Norton Railway Station..there was a family living in the 'station house' at Norton Railway Station..Mr and Mrs Greenwood, daughter (*). Mrs Greenwood nursed alongside my late mother,Sister Beb Savage at Crossley Sanatorium East for some years.(*) eventually entered the nursing profession too,qualifying as SRN.
I come from a well known Frodsham family:- dad (*)was conscripted to RockSavage ICI plant in WW11 to assist in the manufacture of chlorine.
The name Bates is a really old Cheshire surname.
I remember the railway embankments being a beautiful swathe of primroses in the 1950s..
Looking forward to seeing how this thread unfolds. ;)
(*) Moderator Comment:
Edited in accordance with RootsChat policy of not publishing details of living people here, or details of people who may still be living. This is to protect all concerned from spam, identity abuse, internet abuse, etc, etc.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.
-
Hi again, holiday over back to chilly England.
As promised I`ve just spoken to my uncle,(*), who still lives in Halton village. He tells me that he knew the Greenwood family but they lived in Halton Station House not Norton which is at the other end of the tunnel.He also remembers the primroses,
(*) was Stationmaster and Goods Agent at Halton but did carry out some duties at Norton so my uncle remembers meeting him. If he is still alive (*) would be 90ish. My uncle also remembers Mrs. Greenwood and (*) being nurses.My uncle thinks that the Greenwoods moved to Ellesmere Port.
Now when you mentioned your Savage connections and ICI it rang a bell with me. Another uncle (*) worked at ICI for many years but developed breathing problems due to exposure to chemicals.My uncle (*) remembers a Savage who lived in Halton and thinks he was in the building trade.
My BATE[not BATES] family lived in Rows Cottages, Halton in1881, then at Halton Brow before moving down to Norton Station where my grandparents lived until the station closed in 1952. They then returned to Halton where my uncle still lives.
Hope this info is of interest to you,not sure if it will help much with your family history research but every discovery adds colour to the picture.
Cyndy
(*) Moderator Comment:
Edited in accordance with RootsChat policy of not publishing details of living people here, or details of people who may still be living. This is to protect all concerned from spam, identity abuse, internet abuse, etc, etc.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.
-
Oh WOW!! :o so did my dad..
(*), worked in the cell rooms at RockSavage..he too fell foul of chlorine leaks resulting in chronic respiratory problems. Often sent to the medical centre as a result of chlorine inhalations.
Together with
(*) & others,they worked the same shift pattern,would all meet up at the bottom of Fluin Lane/High Street,then on to Rocksavage.
Dad had a brother,
(*) who lived on Main Street,Halton.
(*)worked at the Tannery in Runcorn, he may have been a builder,I am not all that sure.
(*).
More jig saw pieces,Cyndy?
Bates is such an olde Cheshire name.. ;)
(*) Moderator Comment:
Edited in accordance with RootsChat policy of not publishing details of living people here, or details of people who may still be living. This is to protect all concerned from spam, identity abuse, internet abuse, etc, etc.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.
-
Hi again,glad to hear that you found the info. I sent interesting.When I next contact my uncle I`ll let him have the names of the other people you mention and see if we can come up with any more pieces of the jigsaw. My father Walter, eldest of the Bate clan, started work at Runcorn tannery in about 1933 before enlisting in the Scots Guards. I was born in Warrington but after the war we moved south but always came back each summer to stay with grandma and grandad at Norton Station. I remember having to fetch milk from Dixon`s Farm in a can and having great fun riding on the hay wagons at harvest time. Health and safety wouldn`t allow that now!!We did come up to Halton last year to celebrate my uncles 80th birthday and to have a nostalgic walk around Halton village which hasn`t changed much over the years.Quite a few of my Bate family are buried in Halton cemetry in a family grave going back to my greatgrandparents.
Will keep in touch with any more updates of interest.
Cyndy
-
On retiring from the Tannery,for a while,Uncle (*)used to accompany schoolchildren on Yates buses to Helsby Grammar School. Looking foward to being able to help in anyway I can. :)
-
Message to Cyndy and anyone else interested in the history of Norton railway station. I have lived in the property all my life, my parents having originally rented the same from their employers British Rail following their marriage in 1958. The property was a disused Station Masters House (I believe it closed as a Station in 1952), its interior though was still painted in the cream and dark brown/ possibly deep red colours of the old railway's lines trade mark colours and my partents kept it like that for several years after. Interestingly some of the properties internal doors still have brass fittings stamped with LWR. The previous occupants were a family by the name of Bate who I think moved out in about 1952 but its my understanding that they have called at the property on a number of occasions over the years as they maintained contact with the two linesmen who had remained in the station cottages after the station closed and I can certainly remember taking to them as a child. The main part of the house was built in 1851 when an existing farm cottage (I have no idea how old the original part of the house is, I suspect very old as the plaster on the walls is mixed with horse hair) on the Leverhulme estate was extended to convert it into a Station Masters House. My parents finally purchased the house in 1965 and demolished the old ticket office and waiting rooms. Half of the old platform was taken out in the 1970's but the platform that ran at the front of the house was retained and still exists today. Whilst the property has now been significantly changed and extended we have retained a lot of the original features. My childhood however was spent more or less in the house as it was when the Bate family left it. I still remember the old fire place in the living room complete with bread oven and the open fires in all the downstairs rooms and bedrooms. I do have the original deeds relating to the sale of the original part of the property to the railway in circa 1850 I will hunt them out and let you know the exact date when I find them. Hope this helps?
-
Hi, What a great surprise to get your message about Norton Station House. My grandfather James Bate lived in the house with his wife Ada when he was employed as a linesman or ganger for the railway. They lived there until he retired and then moved to Halton village where they lived with their son, my uncle Alex who still lives in Halton.
As a child I spent all my holidays at Norton and played with a little girl who lived in one of the railway cottages. We had great fun roaming the country lanes, riding on the hay wagons at harvest time and fishing in the canal.
Grandad kept chickens and ducks and had a big vegetable garden. There was a pump in the garden which was used although there was water piped to the house and a flush toilet in the yard. I remember grandma using the old kitchen range and washing clothes in a dolly-tub in the yard.The front parlour was rarely used as we all sat around a big table in the main living room. I think there were three bedrooms upstairs.No bathroom or toilet of course, just a chamber pot under the bed. I loved sleeping there and lying in bed listening for sounds of approaching trains when the house would shake as they passed through the station.
My uncle Alex worked in the Norton signal box and I was allowed to `help . move the levers.
I have made a couple of visits over the last few years to see the house but there was no one at home. Some years ago an aunt and cousin were lucky to meet someone, yourself maybe , who showed them around.
It certainly sounds as if you have enjoyed living at Norton Station House it will always be a very special place for me.
Cyndy
.
-
It would have been your grandad and grandmother that I remember calling round as a child, many an hour was spent with my mother and your grandparents discussing uses for the large garden as it was then and I do recall mention of chickens. Your grandad was also very friendly still with the two couples that lived in the railway cottages. Both husbands remained in the railways employment as linesmen until the mid sixties when they retired. I still have vivid images of them passing my house with their lamps of an evening as they went to work. Sadly they and their spouses have since died but they all lived in the cottages until their death. Like you I spent a lot of time as a child in the old signal box, pulling levers and turning the handle on the old phone. I also felt very important in my class at the old village school in Halton as I could brag to all the boys in the class that my train set was far bigger than their Hornby train sets and that I even had my own platform, ticket office and waiting room. Your memory serves you well regarding the house. Downstairs there was a kitchen and two reception rooms, a large one overlooking the old platform with a large iron leaded bay window and a smaller one with the range fire overlooking the garden at the front. The smaller room had a door leading outside into the yard where there was a toilet in the far corner. There was a door on the corner at the house side that led into a coal shed. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, mine overlooked the railway line and I would wave out of it at night to the signal man. The roof of the bay window in the room below also provided a useful means of lowering oneself out of the bedroom window at night and sneaking out to meet friends! The other two bedrooms overlooked the garden and the large pine trees at the front of the property. You are right at that time there was no inside bathroom. Outside there was the 'old gents toilets,' from its days as a station at the back of the property and of course the waiting room (complete with an old heater/brazier) and the old ticket office. Both gave me and my friends endless hours of fun. Then of course there was the platform which stretched on down past the house almost reaching the old brick signal box on the opposite side of the lines. The most magical part though in those days was the embankment opposite the house. It used to be covered with flowers in the summer and had excellent hiding places, especially if you hid behind the old concrete equipment shed that, believe it or not, is still there, albeit hidden by ivy. Behind the house it was just fields. In the one immediately behind there was an old retired farm horse, called Dinah who belonged to the farmer at the top of Norton Village, called Ste Dixon. At the end of the drive where it met the road there used to be a wooden staging for him to drop off his milk churns for daily collection. Now of course we are surrounded by houses and the farms have gone. However, the signal box is still manned and I still watch the signalmen come and go past the house as they change the shift and without exception they still wave and call out a greeting to me and my family, so in that respect little has changed. My memory of your grandparents is that they were lovely friendly people, your grandad certainly had many stories to tell of his time in the house, it was obvious that they had been very happy here. Kind regards
-
Hello again, Thanks for all those wonderful memories. It`s good to know that you enjoyed some of the same simple pleasures of life that I did at Norton. Though I wasn`t bold enough for nightime escapades from the bedroom window!! But is was a time when children were safe to wander the country lanes on their own, all day sometimes as long as you were back for meals.I too remember playing on the big embankment that led up to the bridge and going with my uncle to shoot rabbits on the railway embankment that runs up to the tunnel. It`s interesting to hear that you remember my grandparents. I knew both of the families that lived in Railway Cottages as I was friendly with one of their daughters.Her mother worked in the ticket office on the station. They often came to visit us when we lived in London. I also remember Ste Dixon up at the farm. I was often sent up to the farm with the milk-can to collect milk for grandma but I was a bit frightened of the farm dogs.The other farm I had to collect milk from was Frys[Fryers?] Farm. I had to walk along the canal to get there and often fished for tiddlers which I put in the milk can!!
If you do manage to find the deeds to the house I`d be interested to know if they reveal anything more on it`s history. I have quite a few old photos of the station house which I`ll copy and send on to you if you would be interested.
Regards, Cyndy
-
Really fascinating reading the history of Norton Station.
Perhaps, the deeds could be with the estates office? Just possibly, could there be a copy at Chester Records Office,or, the equivalent with British Railways?
There is talk of the line opening up to Liverpool (from Frodsham) again,although, just how far this idea has progressed, I don't know.It would be great if this line was re-installed.
I have many happy memories of journeys on this route.. ;)
-
I definitely have the original deeds somewhere. My parents purchased the property outright in 1965 and the deeds formed part of the abstract of title. It was in the days of unregistered land so the deeds were passed on to them as part of the transfer, the land didn't become registered until 1986 when I transferred the property into my name. I do recall that it was a sale of a parcel of land from the Leverhulme estate to the railway in approx 1850 and on the property was an existing farm workers cottage the structure of which still forms part (approximately a quarter) of the existing house today.
-
Copies of any pictures would be lovely, whilst I have clear memories of how the house used to look my daughter has grown up in the property as it is now and it would be nice to be able to show her what it was like, the photos I have do not do it justice. The farms that were in the area when I was a child may have changed since your visits. The closest was the Dixon's at Yew Tree Farm (and you are right the dogs there used to send me scurrying for cover whenever we visited), then there was the Percival's at Eanleywood Farm. In Norton Village itself was Teddy West at Lodge Farm. There were two small farms on the opposite side of the canal bridge at Warford but they shut down in the 1960's and I am sorry but I don't remember their names. There was a small white cottage just by the canal where two brothers lived that used to sell milk etc but again I can't recall their names. We uncovered two of the old lanterns that used to be used by the linesmen on the line some years ago when we dug out the footings of the old waiting room (the old fashioned type made from brass with glass windows, that held candles on the inside). I couldn't bring myself to just consign them to the skip so I had them restored and they now sit proudly on one of the carts I use for carriage driving with my horses. Next time I have that carriage out I will take a picture for you.
-
Hi
I just came across this thread, and thought I'd say hello. My family lived in Norton until we moved to Moore in 1971. We used to live in Primrose Cottages which were halfway between the Station and Yew Tree Farm. I remember Ste and Annie Dixon well. I also remember the beautiful primroses :)
My dad worked at Eanleywood Farm, and also for Teddy West. We used to wait for the school bus to Halton outside Yew Tree Farm. There was an old bubble car in the top field, and Henry the bull in the one opposite our house. My sister and I used to pick mushrooms in that field while my brother kept a lookout for Henry.
Ste had two dogs, Benny and Silvie. I have painful memories of them knocking me flying one day while they were chasing our dog down the field.
Other people I remember were the Bennett family and their daughter Frances who lived at the station, the Archers who lived at the Smithy, the Shackladys, the Rileys, and my great auntie Nellie (Wilkinson) who lived at a smallholding opposite Norton Lodge.
My dad's family were also from Main Street in Halton village, and we have family graves in the cemetery there.
I'm so pleased to find someone who remembers the 'old' Norton. I've hunted high and low for photos, but although there are loads available of Halton, Norton seems to have been forgotten :(
-
Hi, Great to hear from someone who knows about Norton and Halton. My Grandfather lived in Norton Station House from 1937-1957 as an employee of the railway. Most of my summer holidays as a child in the 40`s and 50`s were spent with my grandparents at Norton. I had a great time riding on the farm carts during harvesting time, it wouldn`t be allowed these days.
I remember visiting a friend of my aunts who lived in a cottage between the station and Dixons farm. The cottage was high up on the bank above the road, could this be the house you mention?
Interestingly one of the witnesses on my great grandparents marriage certificate is a Henry Wilkinson. Could there possibly be a link with your great aunt? My great grandparents were married on 25th December 1889 in St. Mary`s Halton.
I was lucky enough to be invited to visit Norton Station House by Frances who you mention in your post. Although the house has been extended the core of the building remains the same and was easily recognisable from my childhood. Frances also took me on a quick local tour to Norton Village and in the opposite direction as far as the canal bridge. I remember a family living there who kept geese in the garden as `guard dogs`. I cant remember the family`s name, possibly Williams.
The only other family name I can remember is a Rosie Rowlinson a friend of my aunts.
At the time of the 1881 census my Bate family lived at Rows Cottages Halton. Do you know where abouts in the village this would be?
Cyndy