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Boom times, riot and Zeppelin raid in street which saw the rise of Goole town and port

No one would argue with the notion that Goole's Aire Street is not what it used to be.

Long gone is the time when it was a focal point for the commercial life of the town. Gone are the family-run concerns which for generations represented the forefront of local shopping.

Gone, too, is that atmosphere of importance and bustle which emerged in the 19th century, when Aire Street was where developing port and rising town came face to face and flourished side by side.

Yet, even today, Aire Street remains at the very heart of local history.

Some of the three-storey houses in Aire Street were among the earliest to be built when the Aire and Calder Navigation laid out the basics of the town that would be Goole. North Street, Ouse Street and George Street were part of that inner core, too, as the port began to take shape, not so many years short of two centuries ago.

Aire Street, in fact, was Goole's first shopping street of any significance. It had Goole's first railway station, and at one time was the location for the only bank in town.

The old Lowther Hotel, believed to have been built in 1824 and formerly known as the Banks Hotel, was one of the first Aire Street buildings.

From Goole's early days until well into the second half of the 20th century it was a prominent venue for functions of various kinds, though its place in local history amounts to more than that.

The Lowther and that part of Aire Street it dominated in its heyday were the scene of Goole's infamous Election Day riot in 1880. Nowadays those upset by election activity might do no more than drop a line to the Readers' Page of the Goole Times, but 128 years ago an angry mob stoned the hotel, smashing most of its front windows. The incident culminated in an official reading of the Riot Act, which compelled all rioters to withdraw and disperse.

The Lowther's windows were smashed again by one of the bombs dropped in a German Zeppelin raid on Goole in 1915 - an attack which claimed the lives of 16 local people, six of them children.

For a good many years the Lowther was one of four public houses in Aire Street. One of the others was the Sydney Hotel where, for a period, the landlord was bowler-hat-wearing Billy Coward, in his day one of Goole's great 'characters'. Another Sydney landlord well-known in his time was former butcher Teddy Middleton.

For years the Sydney was the setting for a weekly corn market. Held on Wednesdays, the market brought together farmers, seed merchants and other traders, and business was brisk more often than not.

Not far from the Lowther, though on the opposite side of Aire Street, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company created a station when the railway reached Goole in 1848. With two 100-foot long platforms, it remained the halt for L and Y trains until 1879, after which all Goole-bound passenger trains used the then North East Railway terminus in Boothferry Road, where the town's station remains to this day. Shunting lines, though, kept a railway presence in Aire Street until some years after World War II.

Dealing in fish, game, poultry and fruit etc, the family firm of James Hopley and Sons, was based at 60 Aire Street from the 1870s until 1988. Founded in 1830, by Robert Hopley and his wife Mary, the business originally occupied premises near the Lowther bridge and then at 21 Ouse Street. Though the Aire Street shop closed 20 years ago, the wholesale arm of the business, in Victoria Street, kept the Hopley name involved in Goole commerce until brothers Randal and Malcolm retired in 2005.

Though the early 20th century saw the rise of shopping in Boothferry Road, Pasture Road and Carlisle Street, even in the early 1930s Aire Street still boasted some of the leading shops in town. In addition to Hopleys at that time Aire Street included G. Bateman (butcher) at No. 47; Glews (furnishers) at No. 64; V. and E. Gorham (wine and spirit merchants) at No. 54; and Milner Brothers (florists and fruiterers) at No. 45.

Among other Aire Street shops in this pre-war era were Cooper's gents' outfitters, and at No. 68, Lumley and Wright - 'general and fancy drapers', who at the time reckoned that their range of women's knickers was by far the best in town. Previous occupants of the Lumley and Wright corner premises were Liptons, who subsequently had a branch in Boothferry Road. Later 68, Aire Street was used as offices for Lep.

Hopleys and other long-established shops such as Timms the Chemist, and ironmonger S.G. Bevan, were still very much at the heart of Aire Street activity in the Fifties and Sixties. Near the junction with North Street was Peter Hall's, one of two places in Goole then - the other was Sheppard's in Boothferry Road - where local 'pop' music fans could buy the latest records and keep abreast of the Hit Parade. Next to Halls' for a time was the vet Andrew Hugh, who was succeeded by Peter Thompson before the practice moved to Boothferry Road.

Aire Street butchers then were George Claybourne's, on the Ouse Street corner, and, nearer the Lowther, Oldridge's. At that time the latter's premises had been a butcher's for more than a century, Oldridges succeeding Needhams', who were preceded by Cooper's. Another Aire Street business in that era was Keith Anderson's, which later moved to Pasture Road.

For years many a local business was served by the Aire Street branch of Barclays Bank, next-door to Hopleys. Branch manager in the Sixties was Mr W.B. Dimelow, and other staff at that time included Bob McKernan, Keith Daine, Mrs Audrey Cannon (née Kirk), Mr J. Jefferson, Miss Elaine Smith, Mrs D. Hannaford and Mrs June Marsh.

So, while its broad thoroughfare sees far fewer busy times now than it did for well over a century, there are still those who can look on Goole's Aire Street as a memory lane.

Published on 17th July 2008 in News.

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