Castle Buildings, Telegraph Road

On each end of the Castle Buildings the date 1936 can be seen above the shop frontages. This was the year in which local builder Charles Peers completed the block of shops.

Originally it was part of the site of Heswall Castle along with Castle Drive and part of the Mount . The castle was a folly built by a Mr Tytherington in about 1865. He came from Liverpool and built the castle as a present for his wife. Unfortunately she did not like the house ,which would have been rather remote then,and she never lived in it . It became known as Tytheringtons folly . It was sold in the 1890s and was taken over as a girls orphanage ,used only in Summer for holidays for the orphans. The girls were a familiar sight in the village , dressed in brown with aprons with stiff starched collars and bonnets . They would walk to St Peters each Sunday where they filled the side pews. They would use the back entrance of the castle gates , one of the turrets of the gatepost can still be seen at the junction of Castle Drive and Feather Lane. Later a nurses wing and a hall ,used by locals for whist drives and dances, was added.

In 1932-3 the Wirral Urban District Council were interested in buying the castle for their offices but it was to cost too much to repair so they purchased Hill House (now the Jug and Bottle ) instead.

The castle and the lodge which was at the corner of the Mount and Telegraph Road were demolished. The original castle site was at a much higher level than the current shops so a lot of excavation took place. The spoil from this was taken to the building site of Elmwood Drive and surrounding roads off Irby Road . As it made the Elmwood site much higher ,that became known as Mount Sinai by the locals. 
Charles Peers also built all the houses in the Elmwood Drive - Greenbank Drive area and latterly built the flats in the Mount .A deeply religious man he also built the Gospel Hall in Pensby Road .He bought the castle site for £16.000 
The shops in Castle Buildings were set back from the road ,the ground floor being the shop and the first floor the living accomodation. All the shops originally had two doors ,one at each end of the shop . As today the shops were at different levels making it interesting for children to walk along jumping up each step at a time. 
Initially the shops were not popular , some standing empty for some time 
and during World War 2 change of ownership was common . Shops such as butchers ,bakers and grocers were not the sort of shops that opened there and some of the early shops included teashops, electricians , hairdressers , babylinen etc.

Few of the owners live above the shop today as originally in tended. Many shops have now been extended at the rear and the first floors contain store rooms etc. The building on the corner of the Mount was built in the 1950s and for many years was the Co-op .Prior to that it was a car park surrounded by a wall of red sandstone .The flower beds which front the shops have also been there for many years. 
The site of the now Abbey bank was originally a bicycle repair shop owned by Bill Bradley whose original business had been on the corner of Downham Road South and Telegraph Road.

A business that has been in Heswall from the 1930s is Goulds the stationers . It was opened in 1937 with Miss J P Lowndes as manageress. The shop is now four times the original size . Goulds has been in business in Wirral for over one hundred years. The shop that is currently Baines the jewellers has only been a hairdressers and a jewellers throughout the shops history. The Hallmark card shop was a wine stores for many years.The current shop Sujendo was a tea rooms at the start owned by the Misses Petrie and later a delicatessen owned by Richard Heal. Harris Opticians was a greengrocers in the 1950s and 60s . It was one of the first self service shops in Heswall. Cain of Heswall is also a well established shop taking over from Cheadle menswear in the 1950s.

The numbers of the shops have changed from No's 1 - 14 Castle Buildings to 143-195 Telegraph Road but despite all these changes Castle Buildings are still an important part of Heswall's retail centre.

Jenny McRonald 2009 

You can write to Jenny care of: mike@heswall.com