The Troqueer Building: Grand Town Residence To Labour Party HQ

The Troqueer Building

Troqueer was a small settlement on the East side of Aughton Street that in the mid-1800s housed a huge Irish Immigrant population, all crammed into an area of small courts containing rows of tightly packed, hastily constructed cottages. St Patrick’s Court, situated between the Black Horse Inn and the Victoria Inn (later the Queens) was almost exclusively for the Irish Agricultural labourers who came into the town to find work they were familiar with.

Looking at the 1851 and 1861 census  returns for St Patrick’s Court, there are dozens and dozens of children, all under 10 years old, all born Ormskirk and without exception, both parents are recorded as born Ireland.   The Irish Agricultural Labourers were welcomed to the town, the Railway had brought them in after having enticed many local agricultural labourers into jobs on the railway and the trade the railway subsequently brought into the town meant that for local workers, other job opportunities other than working in agriculture presented themselves.

A Map Of 1892 Showing The Location Of The Troqueer Building. Click For Larger View

Moving northwards beyond St Patrick’s Court, and its accompanying beerhouse , the buildings change to the grand first residence, before he moved to Ormskirk Hall, Burscough Street, of Dr Charles Price Symonds, the Yorkshire born surgeon, who, on moving to Ormskirk to set up his practise in the late 1840s and married a local girl, Martha Stockley, in 1850, before opening  his first surgery in a large house with landscaped gardens to the rear and adjoining on its north side the the large double fronted town residence of retired Pwhelli born landed proprietor, Hugh Owen, which as early as 1851 was named on town maps as the Troqueer Buildings. Hugh Owen lived there as far back as 1841, being listed under, ‘Nobility, Gentry and Clergy’ in an 1848 Slater’s Directory.  Although 20 years earlier he had a tinplate works in Market Place. Hugh Owen died aged 83 in 1856 and was buried at the Parish Church on 7^th July that year.

After Owen’s death, his son Richard Owen inherited Troqueer and moved in there with his family. Richard Owen was an ironmonger with an ironmongers and small foundry on Moor Street next to the King’s Arms, which later, when Richard Owen retired to Scarborough after 1871, became Wainwright’s Ironmongers and then the Corn Exchange.

A Cammack Mineral Water Bottle

Troqueer saw changes during the 1870s and was split into a smaller residence for Henry Hydes, the wine and spirit merchant, with some of the rear of the property being made into a court for separate small dwellings, when Hydes moved across the road to 32 Aughton Street to open a wine merchants shop, Troqueer was bought by George James Cammack, the Mineral Water Manufacturer who ran the business with great success for several decades from those premises. The Water Manufacturing business was huge at that time as bottled mineral water was a safe and healthy option to pump water.  Remains of the factory we believe still exist to the rear of Aughton Street across to Bridge Avenue.

George James Cammack only moved from Troqueer between 1916 and 1919. The next information we have is that the building became the Labour Party Headquarters in the town and was used as the campaign HQ for the Ormskirk candidate 28 year old Harold Wilson in 1945. Wilson served as the Town’s MP from 1945 until 1950.

An Advert For Cammack Mineral Water. Click For Large View

The descriptions of the grand interior court of Troqueer mention large black marble columns and huge black painted doors. The building was demolished in the 1970s and remains as the telephone exchange car park. If anyone can add anything, or indeed correct any of this research, please do get in touch.