The photograph of the Promenade Café was taken during the Second
World War. The two storey building on the right
of the Café is the Canadian Stores, which was run by George
Washington Stoddart. Stoddart had been a Major in the Canadian
Army and first arrived in Matlock Bath during the First
World War; he received medical treatment at the Canadian
Memorial Hospital[1] that
had been set up at the Royal Hotel[2].
He finally settled in Matlock Bath in 1933[1] and
ran the store, which sold ice-cream and groceries,
with his wife Bernice. Mrs. Stoddart was one of the daughters
of Joseph and Elizabeth Hardstaff who ran the Promenade
Café and who had lost a son during the 1914-18 war[3].
At first floor level, running the length of the building,
is a wrought iron balcony. At some stage, presumably post
war, the section over the shop adjacent to the café - Mr.
Gale's Gift Shop in the 1950s and 60s - was removed and the
window replaced[4].
Above the arched windows on the third floor are stone corbels.
It is not known if the soldier was heading for the George
Hotel but the
railway trolley on the pavement is loaded with fish boxes[5]. |
