Former tannery is demolished

BULLDOZERS have torn down a former tannery in Runcorn.

Long-term resident George Baines, 79, of Stenhills Crescent, said he could remember taking discarded leather strips from round the back to burn as fuel during the late 1940s and early 1950s when he was a child.

He said that his sister had worked there.

Mr Baines said the building was the last of Runcorn’s former tanneries.

Tanning was one of the town’s major industries in the 19th and first half of the 20th century with firms such as Camden, Astmoor, Puritan and Highfield producing for export around the globe.

The Weekly News reported in 1941 that Runcorn leather was ‘treading streets in practically every country in the world’.

The industry’s importance to the town is commemorated in the form of a blue plaque at Bridgewater Garden Centre, at the former site of Puritan tannery, which closed in 1964.

Heritage campaigners installed the memento last summer.

Stu Allen, the founder of the blue plaque heritage trail, said he believed the warehouse would have been part of Puritan Tanneries Ltd.

Officials do not know what is planned for the warehouse site.

A Halton Borough Council spokeswoman said the local authority has not yet received an application or pre-application in relation to the Halton Road site.

Permission was granted in February last year for an adjacent plot accessed from Halton Court to be redeveloped as 53 two, three and fourbedroom houses.

Describing the demolition, Mr Baines said: “They’ve been knocking the walls down, with two great big JCBs. “It’s all gone now.” Stu Allen provided background on the site.

He said: “The tannery was formed in the early 1900s and was originally called Boston Tannery after the owner Francis Boston. He lived in what is today Runcorn Town Hall from 1904 until his death in 1929.

“For a time it was known as Boston Grange.

“Boston Avenue was named after him. It became Puritan Tannery in 1926. The Puritan closed in 1962 and went into liquidation in 1966.

“Shortly after this some of the tannery buildings were converted into Gardenvale Foods lard factory, known locally as ‘The Lardy’. The factory went up in flames in 1974.”