Maitland an incomplete history as seen through the eyes of a small boy Pt2
This blog is about Elgin Street.
Today when you travel down High Street Maitland your progress is blocked by the Mall & all traffic travels down what is known as Elgin Street. This street that runs from High St to the railway line has undergone much change in the last 40 years. Many of the businesses & the premises I remember as a child are now long gone.
On the corner of High & Elgin street was the ANZ bank. Travelling on down the street on the left was Pont’s foundry. All I can remember of Pont’s foundry is a large untidy corrugated fence with Pont’s Foundry in big black letters. This site was later to become a plaza of shops. Across the road in what was once the Savoy picture theatre was Cameron’s Honda motorcycle dealership. Here motorcycles were displayed in the foyer, the old lolly counter was the parts counter & the theatre was a ramshackle work shop. This building facade is still there today & houses an insurance company. Just on from here was All-Ag which was housed in a rather modern brick building. The Thompson family ran this business supply farmers with all their chemical needs. This building was demolished to make way for the car park. A little further down was Penders Bros Joinery, housed in a collection of building that stretched down to the site now occupied by the Woolworths. I used to love going to Penders with my father where they had a Hardware section. The highlight of a trip to Penders was if you required something from another section was that you had to travel past an array of wood working machinery all driven by huge flat belts attached to pulleys that were in turn attached to a shaft running the length of the building. It was here that timber windows with their sash cords & counter weights were manufactured for Maitland homes. The air was always rich with the aroma of milled timber. Penders were also famous for beekeeping equipment & at one time were the largest beekeeping equipment manufactures in the Southern Hemisphere. When Penders closed the buildings were demolished to make way for Pender Place shopping centre. Crossing over the street & further down was R F Heads Soft drink factory & the highlight of the year was to purchase several cases of soft drink. Each wooden crate containing a dozen 32 fluid ounce bottles of mixed soft drink. Maitland also had Watson soft drinks factory, neither factory could compete with the multinational brands. R F heads building is gone now replaced by a storage centre. Also near here was a tractor dealership selling Fiat tractors.
Nowadays Elgin Street is just a thoroughfare through town with no reminders of its rich history in developing Maitland!
At the end of the Street you turned into a street that was home to what was known as the Union a market place for local produce & this will continue with part 3 next week
This blog is about Elgin Street.
Today when you travel down High Street Maitland your progress is blocked by the Mall & all traffic travels down what is known as Elgin Street. This street that runs from High St to the railway line has undergone much change in the last 40 years. Many of the businesses & the premises I remember as a child are now long gone.
On the corner of High & Elgin street was the ANZ bank. Travelling on down the street on the left was Pont’s foundry. All I can remember of Pont’s foundry is a large untidy corrugated fence with Pont’s Foundry in big black letters. This site was later to become a plaza of shops. Across the road in what was once the Savoy picture theatre was Cameron’s Honda motorcycle dealership. Here motorcycles were displayed in the foyer, the old lolly counter was the parts counter & the theatre was a ramshackle work shop. This building facade is still there today & houses an insurance company. Just on from here was All-Ag which was housed in a rather modern brick building. The Thompson family ran this business supply farmers with all their chemical needs. This building was demolished to make way for the car park. A little further down was Penders Bros Joinery, housed in a collection of building that stretched down to the site now occupied by the Woolworths. I used to love going to Penders with my father where they had a Hardware section. The highlight of a trip to Penders was if you required something from another section was that you had to travel past an array of wood working machinery all driven by huge flat belts attached to pulleys that were in turn attached to a shaft running the length of the building. It was here that timber windows with their sash cords & counter weights were manufactured for Maitland homes. The air was always rich with the aroma of milled timber. Penders were also famous for beekeeping equipment & at one time were the largest beekeeping equipment manufactures in the Southern Hemisphere. When Penders closed the buildings were demolished to make way for Pender Place shopping centre. Crossing over the street & further down was R F Heads Soft drink factory & the highlight of the year was to purchase several cases of soft drink. Each wooden crate containing a dozen 32 fluid ounce bottles of mixed soft drink. Maitland also had Watson soft drinks factory, neither factory could compete with the multinational brands. R F heads building is gone now replaced by a storage centre. Also near here was a tractor dealership selling Fiat tractors.
Nowadays Elgin Street is just a thoroughfare through town with no reminders of its rich history in developing Maitland!
At the end of the Street you turned into a street that was home to what was known as the Union a market place for local produce & this will continue with part 3 next week
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