Railway Street (17)
Originally Railway Street was a lane of early 18th century thatched cottages connecting George Street with Ashley Road and The Downs. It was thought of as part of The Downs but later called Ashley Lane.
Bowdon Station was built here in 1849 at the back of the present shops on the east side, between Goose Green and Lloyd Street, specifically to serve Bowdon residents and included a hotel. The station was made redundant in 1881 when the current Altrincham & Bowdon Station was built. It became railway sheds until 1970. The shops on the east side of Railway Street were originally mid 19th century railway workers houses which faced the railway. The single storey lock-up shops were added at the back of the houses at first floor level in 1895 after Bowdon Station closed in 1881. The area was redeveloped in 2003/6.
The Downs Hotel at the bottom of The Downs was a posting house and was built about 1850. Opposite until the early 1900s there was a horse trough and a cabbies’ hut in the middle of the road. From 1907 to 1931 trams used to run up to the bottom of The Downs from Manchester, turning round by moving the pantograph from one end of the tram to the other. Behind Railway Street to the west is Lloyd Square which used to contain several blocks of back-to-back cottages, the remains of which can be seen up Kings Court. Number 28, now Lepps, has been a jewellers since the 19th century. Dean’s grocers, hop merchants and seedsmen were in this block about 1850, when the Deans lived over the shop. Wainwright & Dean were still at number 36 in 1960.
Between the bottom of Regent Road (Chapel Walk) and Goose Green opposite were three pubs: The Woolpack Hotel, The Orange Tree and the Faulkners Arms. The last two were thatched and probably 17th century and the Faulkner’s Arms straddled what is now Stamford New Road. These last two were blocking the development of the road in the 1880s and were pulled down. The licence for The Orange Tree was then transferred to Old Market Place and The Stamford Hotel built in its place which itself was demolished with the building of The Graftons in 1966.
The Woolpack was a low thatched and whitewashed building of 1679 at the bottom of Regent Road with its entrances on Railway Street. Perhaps it was a farmhouse originally. It was rebuilt in 1865 and demolished in 1969. Altrincham Football Club used the Victorian Woolpack as changing rooms before they moved to their present ground in Moss Lane during the 1914-18 War. All of the old inns here and in Old Market Place would have brewed their own beer, many even into the 20th century. Originally Regent Road was very narrow here with a thatched cottage opposite to the side of the Woolpack which was used as a public bakehouse. A room above was approached by outside stone steps known as Jacob’s Ladder.
Opposite to Regent Road is Goose Green.