Over the water: 1950s

[HollyBlack]

Buchanans Flour Mill was on the Dock Rd.
Most of the building has gone now. ...

Yes, that's how I remember Dock Road between Poulton and Seacombe. Crossed by railway tracks in that area that lead to (substantially) disused goods stations on the North side.

Flour milling sprang up along Mersey ports (first Ellesmere port, then Wallasey) in the wake of the 1846 repeal of the Corn laws (that basically had required corn to be milled near to where it was harvested). Since flour was more perishable than grain this deterred imports (and made British landowners powerful) until the corn Laws were repealed. A boom in imports from Canada and the US Great Lakes region soon followed.

The building of mills on the Mersey effectively put into terminal decline an 800 year tradition of corn milling at Chester weir. Indeed I can remember old people in the 1950s in Northwich using the expression "the rent of Dee Mills" to mean "an unreachable amount of money". Of course Dee Mills had not brought any rent money for at least 50 years even back then.

Like so many other things, the death of this industry was the containerisation revolution - it made it economic to ship flour rather than grain.

Now what was the name of the dog biscuit factory there?
All the substandard wheat was made into dog biscuits.

[Waterways]

Since flour was more perishable than grain this deterred imports (and made British landowners powerful) until the corn Laws were repealed.

They still are almighty powerful. 0.66% of the population own 70% of the land. Not much has changed in many, many hundreds of years. The planning laws also reinforce their power.

[phredd]

Hollyback said :-....
Now what was the name of the dog biscuit factory there?
All the substandard wheat was made into dog biscuits.

Was it BOCM (British Oil and Cake Mills) they made a lot of animal feed stuffs.

Phredd

[naked lilac]

I personally love the picture of that stately home behind that steam Lorry.. #2 photo.. What lovely architecture.. and wow.. what a place to live...Wonder if it still exists?

[Gnomie]

Super photos, well done for saving and showing them

[knowhowe]

Yes, the lorry is all polished up for a special portrait. One therefore wonders if the house belonged to its proud owner? If so, there was evidently a few bob to be made out of hay and corn back then. One assumes the house was on the Wirral somewhere and may well be still standing- anybody recognise it?