Bishop Street
A deed dated 1853 records the sale by Thomas Faulkner to George Brown, builder of Newton, of the land which was to become Bishop Street. The houses were advertised in 1854 as being well tenanted. The street contained 34 terraced houses and it must have been a very tight knit, law abiding, residential community, perhaps marred in 1868 when proceedings were taken against one Samuel Earlam for keeping pigs on his premises at No.3 “so as to be a nuisance”.
Much later when local Manx T.T. rider Bill Smith opened his motorcycle shop he extended Bramhall's Garage in Westminster Road to occupy the corner with Bishop Street where an enclosed yard now houses Lewis's Ice Cream vans. Bishop Street was demolished to make way for today's car park.
The Hoole Millennium Book suggests that the street was named after Bishop Peploe Ward. Unfortunately, he only became a Canon and the name more likely alludes to Bishop's Field or Bishop's Ditch which flowed into Flookersbrook (the stream). However there was a bishop Samuel Peploe in Chester and he was related to Peploe Ward who was himself a member of the Hamilton/Peploe/Ward/Panton family after whom several local streets were named.
Sources and Links
- The Trial of Thomas Williams: relation to the bishop;