Mysterious shop in Wells Park Road

[Falkor]

There's a shop at the bottom of Wells Park Road--always with it's shutters down--has been closed for over 20 years! Poking out the front, there's still a small sign reading "Walls", so I assume the building was once an Icecream shop? Anyone remember when it was open?

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falkor

i do remember it being open,but this was eons ago and all i remember is that is was a newsagents[?]

i will ask my mum if she remembers it.

[Greg Whitehead]

It was a DIY shop that specialised in bricks?



(you'd have to have a very, very bad sense of humour to get it)

[leaf]

have you been talking to chrisf?

[Michael Viner]

This shop was one of my childhood sweet shops and holds many memories -it was run by the aptly named Mr.Short with his wife,who was twice the size of him! It sold general goods and provisions as well as sweets,newspapers etc. it was handy as,like good old Scrobies in Taylors Lane,it used to stay open later than the other shops(late for those days,the early-mid 1970's) and I remember several times being sent to get milk or bread when running perilously low.It was a typical sweet shop of the time with that now-nostalgic atmosphere.Shocking by todays standards was the fact that they regularly let my Kirkdale friend,Michael G. buy cigarettes for his Mum-at 8,9 years old ! A couple of times we tried a couple ourselves behind the old Shelter in Wells Park!(my first and last cigarettes).
My favourite sweets I used to buy from there were sherbet (flying)saucers.An unusual feature of the shop was it s' special sort of serving hatch for ice creams-in the Summer you could buy an ice cream or lolly without actually going inside the shop;you walked up to the open window and Mrs.Short would serve you from the nearby fridge.This special window had its' own little black and white striped canopy,the sad remains of which were still there up until about 1990 when the metal shutters were put up which now cover the whole shop.The shop actually closed down long before this,around 1979/80,I seem to recall.

[nannyjacks]

Blimey that brought back memories of Scrobies in Taylors Lane the only shop open on a sunday years ago.I lived in Lawrie Park gardens and if my parents ran out of anything I always had to walk up there on a sunday to buy it .It was up Westwood hill then down Talors lane then the return trip.I was worn out with all that up and down hills

[Gaz]

Michael

Do you know what any of the other shops were along The Parade part of Wells Park Road (from Short's shop towards the Fox and Hound)?

(I'm guessing from the name that this used to be a whole parade of shops along there...)

[Michael Viner]

From the Shorts'sweet shop down to the Fox & Hounds there was only one other shop still open and running in the early 70's(the rest were empty or had become residential)and that was the last shop before the garages-now demolished for housing-next to the Fox& Hounds.It was a great old-fashioned junk shop called The Cheap Shop;it had lots of boxes of dusty old bric a brac,tools hardware etc outside. My Dad found some nice old 20's garden ornaments in there one day-they did'nt last long ,though in our back garden at Oaksford Ave.-soon stolen,depressingly. The Cheap Shop didn't last that much longer,sadly-it had gone by around 74'.

[bradfordroadgirl]

Back in my mum's day (30s and 40s) there was another shop next to that sweetshop (which was originally McMillan's who restrung tennis rackets!!) called the Bonbons - another confectionery/tobacconists and next to that a shoe shop called Stiffs.

Next to these was the Council yards just before Halifax St.