Dallam

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1. Introduction
2. Back in Time
3. The Dallam Family
   1. Thomas Dallam I
   2. Robert Dallam
   3. Thomas Dallam II
4. Sankey Canal
5. Warrington and Newton Railway
6. Dallam Bridge
7. Walkabout
8. Tin Town
9. Flooding
   1. 2008
   2. 2010
   3. 2012
   4. 2021 – Storm Christoph
10. Dallam Community Primary School
11. Church Life
    1. St Mark’s
    2. St Anselm’s
12. Dallam Park
13. Industrial Past Artwork
14. Community Facilities
    1. Help The Needy Charity
    2. Dallam on Health
15. Longshaw Street Flats
16. Harrison Square
    1. The Old Days
    2. Partial Demolition
    3. Future Plans unveiled
    4. Demolition Part 2
    5. The Regeneration of Harrison Square
    6. Harrison Centre to Hetherington Avenue
17. Grey to Green
18. Bewsey and Dallam Community Hub
19. Stanners Pool
20. Ordinary Lies
21. Conclusions

Unlike most other districts in the town, there is no official sign for the district. This is as close as we get, and even Alban Retail Park has changed its name since the sign was erected. Read more on that in the Longford section.

An autumn scene showing Higham Avenue and Hodgkinson Ave on 20 October 2012.

DALLAM is a district in north-west Warrington, located alongside Bewsey and Callands. The name Dallam means ‘valley meadow’, while the street names are named after former town councillors of the town – Higham, Gale, Boulting, etc.

The originally parliamentary boundary shows Dallam to be within an area bordered by the River Atherton on Longshaw Street and Hawleys Lane in the south and east respectively, whilst the western boundary is the Sankey Canal and the northern boundary is Winwick Quay near the footbridge over the railway line.

Dallam is famous for Thomas Dallam, manufacturer of organs, who lived in the area and who, via Queen Elizabeth I, presented an organ to the Sultan of Turkey.

His journey from London to Constantinople (now Istanbul) and return to Dover took place between 1599 and 1600.

More on his story shortly.

The image here shows the location of the Dallam estate from the air in the 1940s before building of the housing estate began in the 1950s. For reference, the isolated building in the open field is called Ivy Cottage and is the site of a residential home today on Hawleys Lane.

The houses forming the triangle at the centre of the image are Southworth Avenue, Molyneux Avenue and Reid Avenue, which were part of the Bewsey Garden Suburbs programme from 1928.

The Sankey (St Helen’s) Canal can be seen on the left of the image. The canal was used to transport coal from the St Helens area to the new industrial areas of Liverpool and Widnes and to transport sugar from Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown. Read more about the sugar works here.

The railways came later and what is now the West Coast Main Line (WCML) can be seen on the right. It is seen in the second image here, photographed from Cromwell Avenue in the north.

Before any modern housing development took place in Dallam the section of Longshaw Street in the Dallam area was known as Dallam New Road according to the 1914 OS map. On the same map we have Dallam Farm in the north of the district, known as Jones’s Farm in my younger days. The farm has since been demolished. There was also a brick and tile works in the area immediately north of Summerfield Avenue.

Also on the same map (click this link) we can see a road in a similar position to the current Cromwell Avenue. There is also a pedestrian footbridge linking Dallam with Gemini retail park close to the spot today. On the map there was a swing bridge that opened to allow boats to sail along the Sankey Canal.

Thomas Dallam (born c1570-1575 – died after 1624) was an English organ-builder.

Thomas Dallam was born around 1570-75 in the district of Dallam, although his exact year of birth cannot be confirmed. In those days Dallam Lane ran all the way to Dallam because the railways weren’t here then. And I don’t know if Dallam is named after his family. Dallam was baptised in Flixton, Lancashire.

Little is known of Dallam’s early life, except that he was apprenticed to a member of the Blacksmiths’ Company, later attaining the status of liveryman. He travelled frequently to build organs on site, going as far as Turkey.

It is not known whether he married, but he had three sons, Robert (born c1602), George and Ralph. Between them the family members became the most important organ builders of their time.

Organ of King’s College. This instrument has been rebuilt since Dallam’s time, but it is believed that some of the case is original. Image is owned by User:FA2010 and is now in Public Domain Wikipedia.org

He was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to journey to Turkey and present an organ to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet III, paid for by the merchants of the city of London. In Europe at that time there were a number of powerful nations, all competing against each other to secure the best advantage, and the English wanted help from the Turkish navy against their enemy Spain.

The record of Thomas Dallam’s journey comes from his own diary, which was published in 1893 by the Hakluyt Society. He was in his late twenties when he undertook the journey in 1599.

Like many of the English of that time Dallam had gone to seek his fortune in the capital. He served an apprenticeship with the Company of Smiths as an organ maker, and soon set up in business on his own.

During 1599 and 1600 Dallam went on a voyage from London to Constantinople in order to deliver an organ to the sultan Mehmet III.

The instrument was commissioned as a present from Queen Elizabeth I and could be played normally or by clockwork. On arrival, the organ took many weeks to assemble.

Dallam afterwards built many important organs, including that of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Unfortunately, much of his work was destroyed by people hostile to church organs following the outbreak of the English Civil War. In the case of King’s College Chapel, the existing instrument is the product of successive rebuilds, and it is not known for certain whether it contains any of Dallam’s work, but it is believed that some of the casing is his.

Thomas Dallam died sometime after 1614.

Read more detailed accounts of Thomas Dallam at Britannica.com.

theorganmag.com is another source if you like that kind of music.

Robert Dallam (born ca. 1602) was an English organ builder active in England and France. He was a member of the Dallam family of organ builders.

Robert’s father was Thomas Dallam, featured above. The first organ Robert made independently from his father may be the Milton Organ now at Tewkesbury Abbey which was commissioned around 1630 by Magdalen College, Oxford.

Although based in London, he worked on organs around the country in the 1630s, including a new instrument for York Minster. Dallam and his family relocated to Brittany in 1643. During the Civil War and English Commonwealth, when it was impossible to pursue a career as an organ builder in England, he worked on a number of commissions in Brittany including an instrument at Lanvellec. Dallam adapted to the French style of organ building which includes stops not called for in English organs.

In 1660, following the restoration of the monarchy, Robert Dallam and other members of his family returned to England, although his eldest son Thomas remained in France building organs. There was plenty of work in England replacing or repairing organs that had been damaged by Puritans, although the Dallam family faced competition from other organ builders. Robert and his sons Ralph and George built an organ for St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, which had been damaged during the Civil War. Robert died in 1665 while work was in progress on a new organ at New College, Oxford. Ralph completed the instrument.

The Milton Organ, Tewkesbury Abbey by Philip Halling Used under the Creative Commons licensing Wikipedia.org

Robert’s eldest son was called Thomas and was born around 1630. As a child, he moved to France with his family. Although his father returned to England in 1660, Thomas remained in France building organs, several of which have been preserved in more or less their original condition. His children included Toussaint Dallam who was also an organ builder.

Organ by Thomas Dallam II at Guimiliau (1677). image by Tango7174 and used under Creative Commons licensing Wikipedia.org

Main text from Wikipedia

The first railway into Warrington passed through Dallam on what is the now part of the West Coast Main Line. This was the Warrington and Newton Railway, which opened on 25 July 1831. It linked Newton Junction (now Earlestown) with a station behind the Three Pigeons pub on Dallam Lane via a single railway line.

The line was taken over by the Grand Junction Railway on 31 December 1834, and again by the London & North Western Railway on the 16 July 1846, when the station stop was relocated to Warrington Bank Quay.

As far as I am aware, the original single railway line along Dallam Lane was never removed. It is still under the tarmac to the west of the footpath on the railway side of the footpath. Incidentally, Dallam Lane now ends at its junction with Folly Lane but in former times it stretched right into Dallam roughly to the east of the current railway line.

A Virgin Pendolino train travels on the West Coast Main Line through Dallam. The inside track in each direction caters for the modern trains on the route of the Warrington and Newton Railway.

My dad once told me that in those early years, when he drove the buses to Dallam, passengers had to get off before the bridge and get back on again on the other side because of weight restrictions. Since then, the bridge has been strengthened.

Also, the roundabout at Dallam didn’t exist, so the buses drove to the top of Longshaw Street and turned around by reversing in and out of Dagnall Avenue. The Dallam bus here featured in a TV documentary from another part of the country in 2014.

To assist with the aftermath of the bombing during the Second World War the council built temporary housing on Tavlin Avenue and Hardman Avenue, Hawleys Lane Bardsley Avenue and Marshall Avenue which have since been demolished.

It became known as “Tin Town” due to the nature of the buildings – metal sheeting and brick. This temporary housing was quite comfortable and lasted well into the 1980s but was the victim of flooding problems due to the low-lying land.

I was part of a mission one year when St Mark’s church served hot soup and meals to residents of Tavlin Avenue after the flooding cut off gas and electricity supplies. I remember one resident reporting bleary-eyed that he saw an inflatable boat passing his front door in the early hours of the morning and thought he was dreaming!

The photo shows two of the house with the gas works behind. I don’t know who the copyright owner is, so please contact me for a credit.

In 2001, to assist with the national housing shortage, it was decided to build houses on the vacant land, but with a proviso that the ground was raised by about two metres (six feet) to give the residents a chance of protecting their properties if there was flooding in the future.

Questions have always been asked as to the cause of the flooding, including the historical lie of the land and how often the drains are cleaned out. One resident pointed out that further down Hawleys Lane past the railway bridge there is no flooding in Eddie Stobart’s yard because he has a large tree which soaks up water. One solution, which seemed to work in the beginning, was the construction of a new pumping station at Bewsey to take away excess water by pumping it into the Sankey Canal. But when that became a problem too some people put it down to that old chestnut called global warming.

Hawleys Lane Bridge flooded on 19 Jan 2008

Storm Christoph brought strong winds, heavy rain and snow to the UK between 19 and 21 January 2021. The most intense rainfall occurred over north Wales and northern England, bringing localised flooding to many areas. The Environment Agency (EA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) issued flood warnings across much of the two countries including severe flooding warnings on the River Mersey, River Bollin and the English and Welsh River Dee. Approximately 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

In Warrington, the Sankey Brook peaked at 5.9m at 4:45pm on 20 January, causing flooding in Dallam, Bewsey and Sankey Bridge, inundating 200 properties. Nearby, the water level on the River Weaver at Northwich peaked at 3.57m at 10:45am on 21 January.

Warrington-Worldwide reported on 21 January 2021 (including links to Adrian Thompson’s drone footage) as follows:

Longshaw Street and Hawleys Lane remains closed to traffic in both directions.

A number of flood warnings remain in place and anyone affected by the warnings is urged to keep up-to-date with the latest news on the Environment Agency website.

Residents are also reminded not to drive or walk through any flood water – this is often deeper than it looks, it may be moving fast and there could be hidden hazards underneath such as raised manhole covers, which can pose a danger.

In total, 80 people from Dallam were evacuated.

My sources 17 June 2024:

Warrington-Worldwide

The Met Office

JBA The Flood People

The school was built in 1952 along with the houses of the new estate. Some of the houses were built before the school construction. The school has received excellent Ofsted ratings in recent years and the staff and pupils work really hard to make school life a success. One important aspect of the work is the breakfast club, which ensures pupils who need it get off to a great start each day. See their website for the latest information.

I attended the school for the last two years of my primary school teaching, having moved into the area in 1972 when our old house was demolished and we then had all mod cons like TWO inside toilets, one in the bathroom. I loved school (as you will read in The Bewsian) and I can remember some things from those days as a nine to 11-year-old there.

I remember ‘Nitty Nora the Bug Explorer’ coming round and if she found any nits you got that letter to take home for you mum to get a bottle of the dreaded Suleo shampoo.

I bet you’re scratching your heads already!

It wasn’t the shampoo as such, although that was bad enough. No, it was the knowledge that your classmates knew you had nits, or chids as we called them!

After my treatment for them I was in class and one must have stayed hidden somewhere and it fell out on the desk, so Alan Donoghue, a classmate, who is sadly no longer with us, said ‘look, a chid’, and killed it with his finger nail on the desk.

You all remember the crack sound as they died, don’t you?

Alan and his family lived in one of the ‘Tin Town’ houses, in the photo of the gas works seen earlier in this page, before they were demolished.

In fact, it was Alan who taught me how to play matchbox rugby that I mention in Childhood Memories.

The nit nurse’s friend…
a bottle of Suleo shampoo.

One of my memories of playtime (we didn’t call it break time in those days) was the boys who played football in the schoolyard. It didn’t matter who was there, they took over the whole space for their football practice and if you got in the way, hard luck. I always remember a classmate called Graham who was so good that we called him Pele. He could have gone on to play the game professionally in my opinion but became a good motor mechanic instead. If you’re reading this Graham, hi there!

One of the touches in the school’s curriculum is teaching about nature. This is highlighted here in the children’s own nature park in the school grounds taken on 29 June 2012.

My second memory of playtime was when the teachers came out just before the end of break to take us back into class. They would line everybody up in their respective classes and if you were quick you stood at the front of the line. Why?

Because to get the right amount of space between you, you had to stretch out both your arms and rest them on the shoulders of the person in front.

The teachers wouldn’t let anyone move until everybody in every class was lined up perfectly. It could be quite a strain on a young nine year old to keep their arms horizontal for what seemed like a lifetime. That’s why you wanted to be at the front of the line because you could leave your arms down.

The school seen from Hodgkinson Ave on 4 Apr 2013

In my time, there was a very long corridor occupying the centre of the school building. It stretched from the infants, through the juniors and finished at the dining room at the other end. It seemed like a mile long as a kid, but in reality was around 300 yards. If you were in the juniors you had no reason whatsoever to walk into the infants area, so if you got caught you were told off.

Another memory was during the last few weeks leading up to the summer holidays. It was a very hot day (not 1976 as I was already in senior school by then) and while the teacher was out of the room one pupil (who shall remain nameless) decided to use a magnifying glass to burn a hole in the wooden desk with the hot sun. It was only a small hole, but the burning wood didn’t half pong! Smoke was rising from the desk. The kid didn’t half get a telling off from the teacher who had to open all the windows so he could get on with teaching the lesson. But then the flies came in. It was like that scene from Carry on Abroad!

The school on 23 Jun 2012

I always remember end of term when you could bring your own games in or use what was in the teacher’s cupboard. One of the most popular items in that cupboard was a jigsaw puzzle showing all the counties of the UK. Quite a moment really because many of the county boundaries were changed in 1974 to accommodate the new administration areas brought in by the government.

And who can forget ‘Pop Shaw’? Mr Shaw was one of the teachers in my day and didn’t like chatter while he was writing things on the blackboard. If he had his back to you and you spoke out of turn he would turn round and throw the board duster at you. He never missed and he always got the right person. Never me of course. Talk about having eyes in the back of your head. Of course, those reactions are not allowed today.

The Children’s Centre on 23 Jun 2012

The foundation stone for St Mark’s is dated 31 October 1953, but the church held its services in Dallam Primary School until the church building was ready. After the retirement of Rev Marshall in 2017 the Church of England leased the building to the Oasis fellowship and it became known as St Mark’s Oasis Warrington. It has since been known as Urban church and is currently part of King’s Church. You might find this website useful for information about earlier times of the church.

The priest of St Anselm’s also officiated at Sacred Heart church on Bewsey Street, with services from St Anselm’s eventually transferring to Sacred Heart and the Dallam building was given over to community use until it was demolished in June 2013. New houses now occupy the site known as as St Anselm’s Place.

According to William Lane (1974), an “unbroken tradition” identifies Mark the Evangelist with John Mark, and John Mark as the cousin of Barnabas.

However, Hippolytus of Rome, in On the Seventy Apostles, distinguishes Mark the Evangelist (2 Timothy 4:11), John Mark (Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37), and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24). According to Hippolytus, they all belonged to the “Seventy Disciples” who were sent out by Jesus to spread the gospel (Luke 10:1ff.) in Judea.

The vicar in charge in 1974 at St Mark’s in Dallam once told me the name St Mark’s was chosen because of the close workings of Barnabas and Paul, the two other Church of England churches close by on Lovely Lane Whitecross and Bewsey Road respectively.

St Mark’s on 12 Aug 2002

I joined St Mark’s church after I was given a Gideon New Testament in my first year of senior school in 1974 and I stayed as part of the youth group and adult group until around 1987. We found out later that the vicar and me both started at St Mark’s on the same Sunday but I cannot remember the exact date, but it was in the autumn.

Two of my CSE subjects were Religious Education (RE) and Photography (for which I got Grade 1 in both). They both complemented each other as part of my schoolwork because for our RE exams we had to create a project with a religious connection so I chose the history of the church of St Mark and used my photography skills to take some photos inside the church building.

One of the funniest things about life there was when the kids in the community thought they were insulting us by calling us ‘God Squad’. We soon wiped the smile of their faces when we said we liked name and might get it made into t-shirts.

The last vicar, Rev Marshall, retired in 2017. The Church of England didn’t appoint a new vicar. Instead they leased the building to a community church and the former vicarage that stood next to the church was sold to a private buyer.

This wasn’t the first vicarage, however. The first one still stands behind the bus stop near the shop and chemist, again owned by a private occupier.

The second vicarage came about because the vicar and his wife thought it was a long trek down Longshaw Street to the church. Planning permission was granted for a new building and the vicar picked up his bed and walked to his new home. One of the things I did to entertain the youth group was to create my version of the TV game Blockbusters. With permission from Central TV we had loads of fun with it and linked with other youth groups.

The banner, left, was about 10ft by 6ft and was mounted on wheels for the annual Warrington Walking Day and Parish Walks. The Parish Walk was an annual custom whereby the church walked around the estates in the church’s catchment area of Dallam and Bewsey on the second Sunday after Walking Day. The walk alternated between Dallam one year and Bewsey the next, with an open-air church service at the end if it was dry. If not, inside the church.

My Six Commandments poster title was a bit of a joke between me and the seven-to-eleven-year-old Junior Club members when we started play activates on a Tuesday evening. The ‘no water’ one meant they had to drink their water at the counter rather than carrying it across the floor and spilling it. At least, I think that’s the reason. It might not even have been my rule.

Anselm of Canterbury OSB (1033/4–1109), also called Anselm of Aosta (French: Anselme d’Aoste, Italian: Anselmo d’Aosta) after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec (French: Anselme du Bec) after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher, and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.

After his death, he was canonized as a saint; his feast day is 21 April. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by a papal bull of Pope Clement XI in 1720.

At the age of fifteen, Anselm felt the call to enter a monastery but, failing to obtain his father’s consent, he was refused by the abbot. The illness he then suffered has been considered by some a psychosomatic effect of his disappointment, but upon his recovery he gave up his studies and for a time lived a carefree life. Wikipedia gives a more detailed account of his life and work if you are interested.

Dallam Park is a large playing field featuring football and rugby pitches on Longshaw Street. The park also features a children’s enclosed play area with swings and roundabouts, which were replaced on 31 May 2011 and the site reopened in early June 2011. When I was a child, there was a climbing frame in the shape of a rocket (horizontal position), parallel bars, swings and two slides, one about six foot high and the other almost twice as high. In my teenage days we had a bit of a knock about with the cricket bat and ball in the youth club, but there was no official cricket pitch – we made our own – but I was never any good!

We have also had mini-sports days on the field. All this went on the 1980s. In 2010 a small evangelical mission was held on the field, similar to one from Hope Hall at Bewsey in my teenage years. Bank Quay Bulls amateur rugby league club now play their home matches on the field and make use of the changing rooms on site.

Dallam Park on 12 August 2002

A plan to sell off the playing field for a housing development threatened the park in 2012, but the playing field is the only green space in the area. Yes, there is Bewsey Meadows for nature walks, but nowhere to play sports. The plan was to relocate the children’s play area onto land between the two churches and Bewsey Meadow. The idea was later dropped, although the play area was eventually created.

One other facility is a multi-use games area (MUGA) which was built in March 2013 alongside a purpose-built changing facility.

Bank Quay Bulls amateur rugby league club now play their home matches on the park and use the changing facilities onsite.

And just for the record, the Bulls beat Wigan St Cuthbert’s 44-12 in this match on 26 May 2012.

Trophies: Carlsberg Cup winners 2013 and 2015

Industrial Past Artwork

The following series of photos show how an artist brought back the memories of industry and community life in and a round Dallam from times gone by. The photos were taken in 20 November 2001 as part of my walkabout and can be viewed as a manual slideshow. I will display the photos first, then continue with the story.

I have not displayed the photos in any particular order but one of the first industries anywhere was farming, which you can see anywhere in the country once parts of the forest covering the whole of the UK was cut down. A quiet farmhouse setting is seen in the black and white painting.

In the 1770s a group of businessmen petitioned Parliament for assistance with the transportation of the growing industries in and around the town. This resulted in the Act of Parliament to create the Sankey Brook Navigation of 1757. It began with coalmining close by at Wigan, St Helens and Newton, and also sugar at Newton.

Another industrial site in the town was Dallam Forge. Although outside the district (it is located on Dallam Lane in Bewsey) it is remembered here in the artwork. Dallam Forge opened in Dallam Lane in 1840 as a supplier of merchant Iron. Next came the railway as featured in the Warrington and Newton Railway of 1831, a branch of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened the year before.

When the houses on the estate became occupied from 1952 onwards a new bus service was started to help transport the workers and housewives to and from the town centre. It was basically an extension of the Bewsey Circular route featured in the artwork.

Part of the investment in the community was due to the determination of passionate people asking simple questions and making comments to the authorities. One such person was Myles Crozier, who retired from his office manager job at Greenings Wire on Bewsey Road and set up an over sixties charity called Help The Needy Over Sixties Club in 1982. Myles ran the charity with his wife Doris and had a supporting committee of dedicated volunteers.

Myles rented space in St Mark’s church hall to provide a weekly luncheon club for the housebound and activity afternoon of bingo and entertainment for the housebound and able-bodied senior citizens. It also subsidised holidays for members.

Myles recruited me to a volunteer role as an existing member of the church fellowship and set me on a lifetime of care in the community, whether from a secular or spiritual point of view.

Back to those comments, Myles simply stated to the authorities that “nine out of ten areas in Warrington have a community centre, Bewsey and Dallam is the tenth”.

Nine out of ten areas in Warrington have a community centre. Bewsey and Dallam is the tenth.

Another survey, in the 1990s, more community-wide this time, looked at the needs of the other members of the community of Dallam with a idea of getting more facilities in the area.

Because of my community roles I was asked to take part in sending out and collecting the results of a detailed questionnaire asking the residents what they felt was needed in the district.

The project was called Dallam on Health and covered a wide range of subjects on health and wellbeing. The residents were both excited and nervous about the survey. Excited because they thought things might finally happen at last but nervous because they had been let down previously.

Our sweatshirts not only looked good on us, they were our ID badges too! I have still got mine.

There was a cake shop, Renshaw’s hardware shop, a post office, Beswick’s grocery shop, Condliffe’s hairdresser’s and Mulhall’s chip shop, all housed in a row of six shops opposite the Co-op, which later became a Spar and later still a Nisa supermarket incorporating the post office. In more recent times there was Warrington Angling Centre (in the former cake shop by the roundabout).

Grey to Green was a road and pavement improvement scheme for Bewsey and Dallam. The Bewsey section was completed in 2016 and the Dallam section in 2018. The work involved new pedestrian crossings, road markings, new pavements and parking spaces. The project also including a change of priority at the junction of Longshaw Street and Hawleys Lane. In times past, residents had complained about vehicles leaving Hawleys Lane at speed to travel down to Bewsey, thus putting pedestrians at risk from irresponsible and selfish drivers and motorcyclists. So the improvement meant that Longshaw Street was no longer the priority, instead Hawleys Lane would be. Pavements were widening at the junction and Longshaw Street traffic now has to give way. If any rider or driver now turned onto Longshaw Street at speed they are likely to crash their own vehicle due to the sharp angle they now must observe.

Ordinary Lies is a BBC TV drama series that was first broadcast on 17 March 2015. The six-part first series, written by Danny Brocklehurst, is set in a car showroom in Warrington employing a number of ‘ordinary’ people, each with dark secrets. As each episode unravels, it becomes clear how quickly lies can escalate with shocking consequences. The series starred Jason Manford, Sally Lindsay and Michelle Keegan, among others. Some of Michelle’s scenes were filmed in Dallam and I was lucky enough to have my photo taken with her during a break in filming. For the second series the cast and crew relocated to Wales.

And here’s a fact I didn’t know until I was researching some map data for a different section of the Downtown series: Dallam, at one time, had a police station at the junction of Hawleys Lane and Bardsley Avenue. Click here to see it on the map. I have been able to conclude that the section of the map in question was originally published before 1956. How do I know? Because if you scroll across to Longford roundabout the second college building (with access from Winwick Road) where I studied between 1998 and 2001 is not on the map – and that building was opened in 1956. On the map it only shows the Long Lane building.