FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 23 - 29 SEPTEMBER 1974
This week's many stories include the clearance of the Kimmicks chemical waste heaps in Jackson Street, the new Radio City prepares to launch 24 hours a day, there's good news for the fire damaged Rainford High School, a smokeless zone is planned for Sutton, Bold and Clock Face, the winners of the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition, a ghoulish event occurs in Sutton, the plans to preserve the historic cottages in Millbrook Lane and the St Helens MP angers the campaigners against Pilks' proposed float glass plant.
We begin with news of Rainford High School. Early in September a huge fire had struck the Higher Lane school in which its music room had been devastated and their massive art theatre damaged. It was now confirmed that the £40,000 blaze had been arson and the police were still searching for the occupants of a dark coloured Ford Escort that had been seen outside the school in the early hours of the morning when the blaze occurred.
Some classes were still being held in corridors and stock rooms but Rainford High had now received some good news. In an announcement unrelated to the fire, St Helens Council had agreed to spend over half a million pounds (around £8m in today’s money) to build additional classrooms and science laboratories at the overcrowded school. Its gymnasium would also be converted into a sports hall, which would be shared between pupils and villagers. Eventually the expansion was expected to lead to 300 more pupils being accepted.
On the 25th it was announced that Radio City, Merseyside's new commercial station, would be on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That, of course, is not remarkable by today's standards but when Radio City launched on October 21st it would be the first radio broadcaster outside London to run a 24-hour service. The station would serve a catchment area of over 2 million people, with its medium wave transmitter broadcasting on 194 metres from Dairy Farm Road in Rainford and on 96.7 MHz VHF (FM) from Allerton Park.
A general election was scheduled for October 10th and one might have thought that the Labour candidate for St Helens, Leslie Spriggs, would have hedged his bets over his support for the location of Pilkington's proposed float glass plant until the election had passed. The glass giant's favoured location off Gorsey Lane, between Sutton Manor and Sutton Leach, had infuriated locals who had launched a campaign in opposition.
Pilks had identified a number of alternative sites in case the Gorsey Lane plan fell through. These were in Rainford, Rainhill, Newton and Collins Green and communities in these places were already expressing concern. But the new plant, wherever it was located, would create and secure many jobs and 2,000 of Pilkington's own workers had signed a petition calling for the council to ensure a site was found within 5 miles of the town.
And so whatever decision Leslie Spriggs made, he would have made himself popular with some but very unpopular with others. But instead of sitting on the fence for the next few weeks, the town's MP for the last sixteen years decided this week to declare his support for the Gorsey Lane site. And he bravely made his decision known at a meeting of the Clock Face / Sutton Leach residents action group – to predictable fury.
"I spent several days investigating," Mr Spriggs told them, "because I believe that where you have virgin land it should be retained. However, I have made various inquiries and found there was no other site suitable for the new float plant." Mr Spriggs said he had visited the Gorsey Lane site, consulted planning authorities and toured Pilks existing float plant at Cowley Hill and decided that there was only one conclusion he could come to. "It would be the cleanest industrial plant in St. Helens and the finest glass making factory in the world," he assured the meeting who were far from happy with his decision.
Last month Robert Kilroy-Silk MP (whose Ormskirk constituency then included Rainford) visited Welding Units in Mill Lane to see for himself the problems the Rainford firm were experiencing. Welding Units made specialist joints for pipelines in the North Sea oil and gas industry and a steel shortage was hampering their operations.
On the 26th the firm had an advert published in the Liverpool Echo for three job vacancies. It's always interesting reading such ads from the 1970s, as often their wording would not be permitted today. One said: "TYPIST/TELEPHONE RECEPTIONIST – Suitable for a young lady with pleasing personality, preferably with some typing. Training will be given."
Wendy Hewitt was pictured in the Reporter on the 27th after the eight-year-old from Ormskirk Road in Rainford had won a bike in a competition run by Sayers. Wendy had coloured in a picture showing the work of the RNLI. And 14-year-old Michael Pennington from Osborne Road in Eccleston was another local winner.
The Reporter also revealed that Ernie Eastham, a railway signalman from Spring Field in Rainford Junction, had won the top prize in the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition for the third time in four years. In total there was 600 exhibits and some of the other winning entries were Ian Hemingway for best painting under five years of age; Alison Wisdom of Bushey Lane School in the 5 to 8 year category; Michael Rigby of Coronation Road in Windle in the 9 to 13s and in the 14 to 18 age group the winner of the best painting was Philip Guest of Randle Avenue.
The Reporter also described how the old chemical waste heaps off Jackson Street in St Helens that were known to locals as the "kimmicks" or the "chemics" had been cleared by Pickavances (shown above). Their report began: "They were ugly and weighed one million tons. They were an eyesore – abscesses of grey chemical waste 50 feet high. They were dumped on 27 acres of land off Jackson Street, St. Helens, by industrialists early this century.
"And it took the local excavation and haulage firm of Joseph Pickavance Ltd., eight months to bulldoze and shift the lot for St. Helens Council. Now the land is flat and town hall officers are planning for the future. Most of the land is likely to be used for light industry in landscaped surroundings. The project was the biggest of its kind undertaken by the council. They are paying Pickavances £250,000 for the job, and the Government chipped in with an 85 per cent. grant. The waste was carted off in 24-ton tipper lorries to almost fill the old Tea Pot clay quarry off Burtonhead Road."
Earlier in the year the St Helens Reporter had described how plans were being made to preserve the three-cottage terrace in Millbrook Lane that Dr Adam Clarke had built when the biblical scholar moved to Eccleston in 1815. One of the cottages was used as a Methodist chapel and that is where Chapel Lane in Eccleston derives its name. Suggestions that the buildings were going to be bulldozed had stirred Eccleston and Whiston Councils into action.
In this week's paper it was revealed that an application had been made to the Department of the Environment for the cottages to be included in its list of buildings of architectural or historic interest. And St Helens Council was considering additional protections by declaring the area a conservation zone.
The Reporter also described how Sutton, Bold and Clock Face were to be included in the St Helens district's next Smoke Control Area. This was expected to be confirmed as a smokeless zone in December provided the Department of the Environment gave its blessing. If the area was confirmed, it would be the eleventh smokeless zone to be designated in St Helens since 1963.
Already questionnaires on home heating had been sent out to 6,288 homes and so far over one thousand houses had been earmarked for adaptation to smokeless heating. Once the control order was confirmed, details would be made public of the grants available to help people make the switch.
And finally, on the 28th a distressing event took place at St Anne's Church in Sutton when a coffin in a freshly dug grave was found to have been tampered with. Individuals that the rector of the church, Father Eugene Kennan, described as "hooligans", had opened the coffin of a recently buried man before the gravedigger had time to cover it with soil and had run away when approached.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the non-paying pirate football teams, the St Helens MP Leslie Spriggs is involved in a car crash, there is a strike at British Sidac, a library book fines amnesty and a call for a linear park to be created in Rainford.
We begin with news of Rainford High School. Early in September a huge fire had struck the Higher Lane school in which its music room had been devastated and their massive art theatre damaged. It was now confirmed that the £40,000 blaze had been arson and the police were still searching for the occupants of a dark coloured Ford Escort that had been seen outside the school in the early hours of the morning when the blaze occurred.
Some classes were still being held in corridors and stock rooms but Rainford High had now received some good news. In an announcement unrelated to the fire, St Helens Council had agreed to spend over half a million pounds (around £8m in today’s money) to build additional classrooms and science laboratories at the overcrowded school. Its gymnasium would also be converted into a sports hall, which would be shared between pupils and villagers. Eventually the expansion was expected to lead to 300 more pupils being accepted.
On the 25th it was announced that Radio City, Merseyside's new commercial station, would be on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That, of course, is not remarkable by today's standards but when Radio City launched on October 21st it would be the first radio broadcaster outside London to run a 24-hour service. The station would serve a catchment area of over 2 million people, with its medium wave transmitter broadcasting on 194 metres from Dairy Farm Road in Rainford and on 96.7 MHz VHF (FM) from Allerton Park.
A general election was scheduled for October 10th and one might have thought that the Labour candidate for St Helens, Leslie Spriggs, would have hedged his bets over his support for the location of Pilkington's proposed float glass plant until the election had passed. The glass giant's favoured location off Gorsey Lane, between Sutton Manor and Sutton Leach, had infuriated locals who had launched a campaign in opposition.
Pilks had identified a number of alternative sites in case the Gorsey Lane plan fell through. These were in Rainford, Rainhill, Newton and Collins Green and communities in these places were already expressing concern. But the new plant, wherever it was located, would create and secure many jobs and 2,000 of Pilkington's own workers had signed a petition calling for the council to ensure a site was found within 5 miles of the town.
And so whatever decision Leslie Spriggs made, he would have made himself popular with some but very unpopular with others. But instead of sitting on the fence for the next few weeks, the town's MP for the last sixteen years decided this week to declare his support for the Gorsey Lane site. And he bravely made his decision known at a meeting of the Clock Face / Sutton Leach residents action group – to predictable fury.
"I spent several days investigating," Mr Spriggs told them, "because I believe that where you have virgin land it should be retained. However, I have made various inquiries and found there was no other site suitable for the new float plant." Mr Spriggs said he had visited the Gorsey Lane site, consulted planning authorities and toured Pilks existing float plant at Cowley Hill and decided that there was only one conclusion he could come to. "It would be the cleanest industrial plant in St. Helens and the finest glass making factory in the world," he assured the meeting who were far from happy with his decision.
Last month Robert Kilroy-Silk MP (whose Ormskirk constituency then included Rainford) visited Welding Units in Mill Lane to see for himself the problems the Rainford firm were experiencing. Welding Units made specialist joints for pipelines in the North Sea oil and gas industry and a steel shortage was hampering their operations.
On the 26th the firm had an advert published in the Liverpool Echo for three job vacancies. It's always interesting reading such ads from the 1970s, as often their wording would not be permitted today. One said: "TYPIST/TELEPHONE RECEPTIONIST – Suitable for a young lady with pleasing personality, preferably with some typing. Training will be given."
Wendy Hewitt was pictured in the Reporter on the 27th after the eight-year-old from Ormskirk Road in Rainford had won a bike in a competition run by Sayers. Wendy had coloured in a picture showing the work of the RNLI. And 14-year-old Michael Pennington from Osborne Road in Eccleston was another local winner.
The Reporter also revealed that Ernie Eastham, a railway signalman from Spring Field in Rainford Junction, had won the top prize in the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition for the third time in four years. In total there was 600 exhibits and some of the other winning entries were Ian Hemingway for best painting under five years of age; Alison Wisdom of Bushey Lane School in the 5 to 8 year category; Michael Rigby of Coronation Road in Windle in the 9 to 13s and in the 14 to 18 age group the winner of the best painting was Philip Guest of Randle Avenue.
"And it took the local excavation and haulage firm of Joseph Pickavance Ltd., eight months to bulldoze and shift the lot for St. Helens Council. Now the land is flat and town hall officers are planning for the future. Most of the land is likely to be used for light industry in landscaped surroundings. The project was the biggest of its kind undertaken by the council. They are paying Pickavances £250,000 for the job, and the Government chipped in with an 85 per cent. grant. The waste was carted off in 24-ton tipper lorries to almost fill the old Tea Pot clay quarry off Burtonhead Road."
Earlier in the year the St Helens Reporter had described how plans were being made to preserve the three-cottage terrace in Millbrook Lane that Dr Adam Clarke had built when the biblical scholar moved to Eccleston in 1815. One of the cottages was used as a Methodist chapel and that is where Chapel Lane in Eccleston derives its name. Suggestions that the buildings were going to be bulldozed had stirred Eccleston and Whiston Councils into action.
In this week's paper it was revealed that an application had been made to the Department of the Environment for the cottages to be included in its list of buildings of architectural or historic interest. And St Helens Council was considering additional protections by declaring the area a conservation zone.
The Reporter also described how Sutton, Bold and Clock Face were to be included in the St Helens district's next Smoke Control Area. This was expected to be confirmed as a smokeless zone in December provided the Department of the Environment gave its blessing. If the area was confirmed, it would be the eleventh smokeless zone to be designated in St Helens since 1963.
Already questionnaires on home heating had been sent out to 6,288 homes and so far over one thousand houses had been earmarked for adaptation to smokeless heating. Once the control order was confirmed, details would be made public of the grants available to help people make the switch.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the non-paying pirate football teams, the St Helens MP Leslie Spriggs is involved in a car crash, there is a strike at British Sidac, a library book fines amnesty and a call for a linear park to be created in Rainford.
This week's many stories include the clearance of the Kimmicks chemical waste heaps in Jackson Street, the new Radio City prepares to launch 24 hours a day, there's good news for the fire damaged Rainford High School, a smokeless zone is planned for Sutton, Bold and Clock Face, the winners of the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition, a ghoulish event occurs in Sutton, the plans to preserve the historic cottages in Millbrook Lane and the St Helens MP angers the campaigners against Pilks' proposed float glass plant.
We begin with news of Rainford High School. Early in September a huge fire had struck the Higher Lane school in which its music room had been devastated and their massive art theatre damaged.
It was now confirmed that the £40,000 blaze had been arson and the police were still searching for the occupants of a dark coloured Ford Escort that had been seen outside the school in the early hours of the morning when the blaze occurred.
Some classes were still being held in corridors and stock rooms but Rainford High had now received some good news.
In an announcement unrelated to the fire, St Helens Council had agreed to spend over half a million pounds (around £8m in today’s money) to build additional classrooms and science laboratories at the overcrowded school.
Its gymnasium would also be converted into a sports hall, which would be shared between pupils and villagers.
Eventually the expansion was expected to lead to 300 more pupils being accepted.
On the 25th it was announced that Radio City, Merseyside's new commercial station, would be on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
That, of course, is not remarkable by today's standards but when Radio City launched on October 21st it would be the first radio broadcaster outside London to run a 24-hour service.
The station would serve a catchment area of over 2 million people, with its medium wave transmitter broadcasting on 194 metres from Dairy Farm Road in Rainford and on 96.7 MHz VHF (FM) from Allerton Park.
A general election was scheduled for October 10th and one might have thought that the Labour candidate for St Helens, Leslie Spriggs, would have hedged his bets over his support for the location of Pilkington's proposed float glass plant until the election had passed.
The glass giant's favoured location off Gorsey Lane, between Sutton Manor and Sutton Leach, had infuriated locals who had launched a campaign in opposition.
Pilks had identified a number of alternative sites in case the Gorsey Lane plan fell through.
These were in Rainford, Rainhill, Newton and Collins Green and communities in these places were already expressing concern.
But the new plant, wherever it was located, would create and secure many jobs and 2,000 of Pilkington's own workers had signed a petition calling for the council to ensure a site was found within 5 miles of the town.
And so whatever decision Leslie Spriggs made, he would have made himself popular with some but very unpopular with others.
But instead of sitting on the fence for the next few weeks, the town's MP for the last sixteen years decided this week to declare his support for the Gorsey Lane site.
And he bravely made his decision known at a meeting of the Clock Face / Sutton Leach residents action group – to predictable fury.
"I spent several days investigating," Mr Spriggs told them, "because I believe that where you have virgin land it should be retained. However, I have made various inquiries and found there was no other site suitable for the new float plant."
Mr Spriggs said he had visited the Gorsey Lane site, consulted planning authorities and toured Pilks existing float plant at Cowley Hill and decided that there was only one conclusion he could come to.
"It would be the cleanest industrial plant in St. Helens and the finest glass making factory in the world," he assured the meeting who were far from happy with his decision.
Last month Robert Kilroy-Silk MP (whose Ormskirk constituency then included Rainford) visited Welding Units in Mill Lane to see for himself the problems the Rainford firm were experiencing.
Welding Units made specialist joints for pipelines in the North Sea oil and gas industry and a steel shortage was hampering their operations.
On the 26th the firm had an advert published in the Liverpool Echo for three job vacancies.
It's always interesting reading such ads from the 1970s, as often their wording would not be permitted today. One said:
"TYPIST/TELEPHONE RECEPTIONIST – Suitable for a young lady with pleasing personality, preferably with some typing. Training will be given."
Wendy Hewitt was pictured in the Reporter on the 27th after the eight-year-old from Ormskirk Road in Rainford had won a bike in a competition run by Sayers.
Wendy had coloured in a picture showing the work of the RNLI. And 14-year-old Michael Pennington from Osborne Road in Eccleston was another local winner.
The Reporter also revealed that Ernie Eastham, a railway signalman from Spring Field in Rainford Junction, had won the top prize in the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition for the third time in four years.
In total there was 600 exhibits and some of the other winning entries were Ian Hemingway for best painting under five years of age; Alison Wisdom of Bushey Lane School in the 5 to 8 year category; Michael Rigby of Coronation Road in Windle in the 9 to 13s and in the 14 to 18 age group the winner of the best painting was Philip Guest of Randle Avenue.
The Reporter also described how the old chemical waste heaps off Jackson Street in St Helens that were known to locals as the "kimmicks" or the "chemics" had been cleared by Pickavances (shown above). Their report began:
"They were ugly and weighed one million tons. They were an eyesore – abscesses of grey chemical waste 50 feet high. They were dumped on 27 acres of land off Jackson Street, St. Helens, by industrialists early this century.
"And it took the local excavation and haulage firm of Joseph Pickavance Ltd., eight months to bulldoze and shift the lot for St. Helens Council.
"Now the land is flat and town hall officers are planning for the future. Most of the land is likely to be used for light industry in landscaped surroundings.
"The project was the biggest of its kind undertaken by the council. They are paying Pickavances £250,000 for the job, and the Government chipped in with an 85 per cent. grant.
"The waste was carted off in 24-ton tipper lorries to almost fill the old Tea Pot clay quarry off Burtonhead Road."
Earlier in the year the St Helens Reporter had described how plans were being made to preserve the three-cottage terrace in Millbrook Lane that Dr Adam Clarke had built when the biblical scholar moved to Eccleston in 1815.
One of the cottages was used as a Methodist chapel and that is where Chapel Lane in Eccleston derives its name.
Suggestions that the buildings were going to be bulldozed had stirred Eccleston and Whiston Councils into action.
In this week's paper it was revealed that an application had been made to the Department of the Environment for the cottages to be included in its list of buildings of architectural or historic interest.
And St Helens Council was considering additional protections by declaring the area a conservation zone.
The Reporter also described how Sutton, Bold and Clock Face were to be included in the St Helens district's next Smoke Control Area.
This was expected to be confirmed as a smokeless zone in December provided the Department of the Environment gave its blessing.
If the area was confirmed, it would be the eleventh smokeless zone to be designated in St Helens since 1963.
Already questionnaires on home heating had been sent out to 6,288 homes and so far over one thousand houses had been earmarked for adaptation to smokeless heating.
Once the control order was confirmed, details would be made public of the grants available to help people make the switch.
And finally, on the 28th a distressing event took place at St Anne's Church in Sutton when a coffin in a freshly dug grave was found to have been tampered with.
Individuals that the rector of the church, Father Eugene Kennan, described as "hooligans", had opened the coffin of a recently buried man before the gravedigger had time to cover it with soil and had run away when approached.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the non-paying pirate football teams, the St Helens MP Leslie Spriggs is involved in a car crash, there is a strike at British Sidac, a library book fines amnesty and a call for a linear park to be created in Rainford.
We begin with news of Rainford High School. Early in September a huge fire had struck the Higher Lane school in which its music room had been devastated and their massive art theatre damaged.
It was now confirmed that the £40,000 blaze had been arson and the police were still searching for the occupants of a dark coloured Ford Escort that had been seen outside the school in the early hours of the morning when the blaze occurred.
Some classes were still being held in corridors and stock rooms but Rainford High had now received some good news.
In an announcement unrelated to the fire, St Helens Council had agreed to spend over half a million pounds (around £8m in today’s money) to build additional classrooms and science laboratories at the overcrowded school.
Its gymnasium would also be converted into a sports hall, which would be shared between pupils and villagers.
Eventually the expansion was expected to lead to 300 more pupils being accepted.
On the 25th it was announced that Radio City, Merseyside's new commercial station, would be on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
That, of course, is not remarkable by today's standards but when Radio City launched on October 21st it would be the first radio broadcaster outside London to run a 24-hour service.
The station would serve a catchment area of over 2 million people, with its medium wave transmitter broadcasting on 194 metres from Dairy Farm Road in Rainford and on 96.7 MHz VHF (FM) from Allerton Park.
A general election was scheduled for October 10th and one might have thought that the Labour candidate for St Helens, Leslie Spriggs, would have hedged his bets over his support for the location of Pilkington's proposed float glass plant until the election had passed.
The glass giant's favoured location off Gorsey Lane, between Sutton Manor and Sutton Leach, had infuriated locals who had launched a campaign in opposition.
Pilks had identified a number of alternative sites in case the Gorsey Lane plan fell through.
These were in Rainford, Rainhill, Newton and Collins Green and communities in these places were already expressing concern.
But the new plant, wherever it was located, would create and secure many jobs and 2,000 of Pilkington's own workers had signed a petition calling for the council to ensure a site was found within 5 miles of the town.
And so whatever decision Leslie Spriggs made, he would have made himself popular with some but very unpopular with others.
But instead of sitting on the fence for the next few weeks, the town's MP for the last sixteen years decided this week to declare his support for the Gorsey Lane site.
And he bravely made his decision known at a meeting of the Clock Face / Sutton Leach residents action group – to predictable fury.
"I spent several days investigating," Mr Spriggs told them, "because I believe that where you have virgin land it should be retained. However, I have made various inquiries and found there was no other site suitable for the new float plant."
Mr Spriggs said he had visited the Gorsey Lane site, consulted planning authorities and toured Pilks existing float plant at Cowley Hill and decided that there was only one conclusion he could come to.
"It would be the cleanest industrial plant in St. Helens and the finest glass making factory in the world," he assured the meeting who were far from happy with his decision.
Last month Robert Kilroy-Silk MP (whose Ormskirk constituency then included Rainford) visited Welding Units in Mill Lane to see for himself the problems the Rainford firm were experiencing.
Welding Units made specialist joints for pipelines in the North Sea oil and gas industry and a steel shortage was hampering their operations.
On the 26th the firm had an advert published in the Liverpool Echo for three job vacancies.
It's always interesting reading such ads from the 1970s, as often their wording would not be permitted today. One said:
"TYPIST/TELEPHONE RECEPTIONIST – Suitable for a young lady with pleasing personality, preferably with some typing. Training will be given."
Wendy Hewitt was pictured in the Reporter on the 27th after the eight-year-old from Ormskirk Road in Rainford had won a bike in a competition run by Sayers.
Wendy had coloured in a picture showing the work of the RNLI. And 14-year-old Michael Pennington from Osborne Road in Eccleston was another local winner.
The Reporter also revealed that Ernie Eastham, a railway signalman from Spring Field in Rainford Junction, had won the top prize in the Rainford Arts and Crafts exhibition for the third time in four years.
In total there was 600 exhibits and some of the other winning entries were Ian Hemingway for best painting under five years of age; Alison Wisdom of Bushey Lane School in the 5 to 8 year category; Michael Rigby of Coronation Road in Windle in the 9 to 13s and in the 14 to 18 age group the winner of the best painting was Philip Guest of Randle Avenue.
"They were ugly and weighed one million tons. They were an eyesore – abscesses of grey chemical waste 50 feet high. They were dumped on 27 acres of land off Jackson Street, St. Helens, by industrialists early this century.
"And it took the local excavation and haulage firm of Joseph Pickavance Ltd., eight months to bulldoze and shift the lot for St. Helens Council.
"Now the land is flat and town hall officers are planning for the future. Most of the land is likely to be used for light industry in landscaped surroundings.
"The project was the biggest of its kind undertaken by the council. They are paying Pickavances £250,000 for the job, and the Government chipped in with an 85 per cent. grant.
"The waste was carted off in 24-ton tipper lorries to almost fill the old Tea Pot clay quarry off Burtonhead Road."
Earlier in the year the St Helens Reporter had described how plans were being made to preserve the three-cottage terrace in Millbrook Lane that Dr Adam Clarke had built when the biblical scholar moved to Eccleston in 1815.
One of the cottages was used as a Methodist chapel and that is where Chapel Lane in Eccleston derives its name.
Suggestions that the buildings were going to be bulldozed had stirred Eccleston and Whiston Councils into action.
In this week's paper it was revealed that an application had been made to the Department of the Environment for the cottages to be included in its list of buildings of architectural or historic interest.
And St Helens Council was considering additional protections by declaring the area a conservation zone.
The Reporter also described how Sutton, Bold and Clock Face were to be included in the St Helens district's next Smoke Control Area.
This was expected to be confirmed as a smokeless zone in December provided the Department of the Environment gave its blessing.
If the area was confirmed, it would be the eleventh smokeless zone to be designated in St Helens since 1963.
Already questionnaires on home heating had been sent out to 6,288 homes and so far over one thousand houses had been earmarked for adaptation to smokeless heating.
Once the control order was confirmed, details would be made public of the grants available to help people make the switch.
Individuals that the rector of the church, Father Eugene Kennan, described as "hooligans", had opened the coffin of a recently buried man before the gravedigger had time to cover it with soil and had run away when approached.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the non-paying pirate football teams, the St Helens MP Leslie Spriggs is involved in a car crash, there is a strike at British Sidac, a library book fines amnesty and a call for a linear park to be created in Rainford.