Wilton Avenue Estate

I recently spoke to Kath Perks, nee Clarke, whose dad Vincent and Uncle John, built the detached houses on either side of Outwood Lodge, around 1964. Chris, who now lives in the Lodge, asked me to find out why the numbers on the avenue have no number 40. This may sort of answer the question. This is what she told me.

“Both my dad and Uncle were joiners by trade and worked full time and so they built their houses on Wilton Avenue in the evenings and at weekends. My 14 year old brother used to help them too. They took over a year to build. We were living in Hulme and Uncle John had already moved from there to Newall Green. We were the last family on our street during the slum clearance to move out. I remember leaving our old house, that was a 2 up 2 down with an outside loo, and driving up in a transit van, past fields on Outwood Road to this 4 bedroomed detached house! We grew up in streets and had seen nothing like that then. We moved in in July 1965 and Uncle John’s house took a little longer to finish before his family arrived probably around 1966. My dad was a site manager in the building trade and so that was how he could build his own house and help his brother too. Don Mackenzie and Danny Cotton, who already lived on the avenue, helped. Don was a bricklayer and Danny was a labourer, becoming a bricklayer a few years later. Both houses were not quite identical, as their layout was different. I know my dad did have plans originally to have a stone chimney up the front. However, the council deemed it too striking and not in keeping with the other houses and so knocked back those plans. Uncle John’s house did have some stonework added, but not to the extent my dad had wanted."

"I remember the shops. There was a newsagent who had counters down both sides and across the top. George Pearson, the butcher, had a shop with a great doorway for hanging about in, as it was set back. My son in law worked for him as a 14-year-old for a while. Horsefields grocers was a double fronted shop. The owner wore a white coat, a bit like Ronnie Barker’s Open All Hours character! There was an off licence and then the chip shop. I do remember the doughnut making machine they had on their counter, as I used to love watching them being made. The chippy had angelfish tiles on the walls. I used to roller skate and slide down the slope from the shops when it was icy. The slope no longer looks massive! We used to climb up onto the roof of the substation via the drainpipe. I still have the scar where a metal spike on there cut my leg. We would go fishing in ponds in the horse field next to our school, where Marquis Drive is now. I went to Outwood Road School, as did my younger brothers to start with. They moved on to Cheadle Catholic when it was built and I stayed for my final year at primary there. I lived on Wilton until 1981.”