Description:At the time of this photograph Boathouse Lane ran from New Road, Armitage, near to its junction with Old Road, down to the Trent and Mersey Canal. There had been a public house named The Boathouse at the canal end. This view has changed considerably as it is an access lane to Ideal Standard's Armitage Shanks pottery site's Lodge 2 and car park.
According to a note with the photograph album the boy is (William) Stanley Hewitt who lived in New Road and was visiting his grandparents’ home. The other man is Mr Carthy who lived opposite Hill’s shop.
Further research shows that the nearest dwelling was the home Stanley's grandparents in 1911: Frederick Hewitt, a domestic coachman, and his wife Martha. It is likely that these are the people standing with him. One of the Hewitts' immediate neighbours was the unmarried Sarah Jane Carthy. It is therefore likely that she is the person seated and the man is her brother Herbert Edmund Carthy, a boatloader at Brereton Collieries Basin, who at this time lived in Brook Cottage, Old Road. The cottage's thatched roof is in very good order. The people probably dressed in their Sunday best.
This picture is from an album of photographs taken by Thomas Harvey Boycott (1876-1949) who lived with his widowed mother, Fanny Maria, whose family had lived at Handsacre Hall as farmers, together with his unmarried aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Harvey. Harvey was a Clerk at Lichfield District Probate Court and a skilled amateur photographer. The album was a parting gift from Harvey and his mother to the Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson (1885-1976) who was Curate of Armitage with Pipe Ridware 1909-1913.