FRYERS STORE ECCLES GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

We have reported several times on the recent demolition of Church Street Eccles which include Scope Charity Shop, Top House pub and Booths Store, to make way for,   three interlinked blocks of four, six, and 23-storey buildings, amounting to 272 one, two, and three-bedroom apartments.

I have been keeping a keen eye on the demolition, filming it and taking lots of photographs for posterity and also I have struck up a rapport with the site agents and demolition men, and asked them to keep an eye out for certain items to save them from the bulldozer.

Booths Store the largest retail shop on that part of Church Street was originally called Fryers Store, and was owned by William Fryer and dated back to the early 1920s, staring as a small shop and then expanding into other premises until it was half the length of the block.

I can recall in the late 1970s walking past the store and noticed that there were several iron, air vents set underneath the windows, but only one had the Fryers name written on it, I mentioned this to a contractor and he told me if it could be rescued he would do it, but it looked a difficult task.

This morning he phoned me and said that one of the bulldozer drivers, Mark a chap from Salford had somehow managed to retrieve it slightly battered and covered in several layers of paint but intact, and it is now in my safe hands.

A few weeks ago I was gifted a Fryers perspex sign which was used as an entrance sign to a side door dating from the 1970s, far better in my house than a builders skip, finally they saved for me the letters from The Top House pub.

Karl reckons that I am slowly saving Fryers Store bit by bit in my house...

It was suggested that I sell these items to the highest bidder with the money going to our Foodbank appeal, to be honest that isn't a bad idea, and lets see if we get any bidders.