Description:Looking along Newport Road towards Gnosall village centre from Coton, this photograph was taken just outside the Navigation Inn (off the picture, to the left) by the road bridge over the Shropshire Union Canal. The grocer's shop built onto the front of the Wilder family's Coton Steam Mill was run by Sheaff & Kemp, a successful grocery business of the time based in Stafford. Mr Walwyn, the manager stands in the doorway. On the road are a horse and delivery cart and a boy with a bicycle. On the right is the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel built in 1823 and later run by the Wilder family for the Exclusive Brethren.
A note filed with the postcard collection tells us the boy is Billy Lees, the butcher's son, whose father's shop is down the road on the right hand side. He is said to be ready to ride to Newport Grammar School. He was aged 8 in 1901 which would date this photograph to about 1905.
Postcard published by M. Hall, Gnosall