Looking Back: Who remembers these shops on Newport Street in the 1980s?

We know that Looking Back readers love a good street scene from years gone by. This photo shows Newport Street, Bolton in 1984.

Do you remember the various shops that were there at the time? The signs certainly remind us of some very familiar high street names including Comet, Currys and Dolcis.

It’s also interesting to note that almost 40 years ago there were still a few ‘to let’ and ‘for sale’ signs knocking around.

What are your memories of Newport Street back then? Leave a comment.

Source

Newport Street always seemed to be full of shoe shops to me.

It was as if every other shop was one!

Is it my imagination but do shoe shops even exist anymore, as I can't remember the last time I saw one?

Don't people just buy there shoes online these days?

As for Newport Street my fondest memory is that as a youngster standing in front of Radio Rentals with a crowd of blokes watching the football results appear on the TV's in the shop window at around twenty to five or so every Saturday afternoon, to see how we had gone on!

Happy Days.

My memory fades, but wasn't there a Macfisheries down there? Dad always made a beeline for the butchers, but I can't remember the name of it.

Don't remember MacFisheries on Newport Street but there certainly was an UCP where my mam bought tripe, cow heel's, pigs feet and pigs belly's.

I used to love the way my mam used to cook the tripe in some sort of a sauce (milk sauce?) and serve it with mashed potatoes. She use to make cow heel pie, which I wasn't too fond of. The pigs feet and belly was served raw which you seasoned with vinegar and pepper. They were alright but my father loved them.

You could also have the tripe raw too, with vinegar and pepper and that was ok but not a patch on when my mother cooked it in a sauce.

The Wheatsheaf was my Aunt Betty's local (that and the Wine Lodge).

She must have been a bit of a rum one in her time I think but back then I was far too young to know...!

Happy days, so long ago now.

The tripe I believe is poached in milk, onions, salt and white pepper.

karlypants wrote:The tripe I believe is poached in milk, onions, salt and white pepper.

Yes, that sounds about right, now that you mention it, I do remember the onions in the sauce.

Probably 50 years or more since I last had it.

Frightening to think how long ago that was.

A different world altogether back then.

Tempus fugit as the saying goes.

boltonbonce wrote:My memory fades, but wasn't there a Macfisheries down there? Dad always made a beeline for the butchers, but I can't remember the name of it.

Thornley's was the butcher.

I'd forgot about the clock above the shop.

It might have been working at the time the picture was taken but I never remembered it ever to be - in fact didn't they take the hands off it at some point and left it like that for years and years?