Digital Hearing Aids Cheadle Hulme – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids

Digital Hearing Aids Cheadle Hulme – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids 

Cheadle Hulme is commuter territory.  It is less than 10 miles to Manchester which is the destination for most of the commuters.  Interestingly Cheadle Hulme started life hundreds of years ago as a series of hamlets and unlike most towns and cities wasn’t built around a church.

In the Domesday Book it was part of a large estate which included Cheadle and was valued at just £20.  Although there were signs of Bronze Age settlers and Romans, Cheadle Hulme’s first owner was the Earl of Chester.  In the 13th Century the area became the property of the Chedle family but they took their name from the area not vice versa.  Through the centuries, Cheadle Hulme and Cheadle had a chequered history of ownership.  The estate was split in two hence Cheadle Hulme in the south and Cheadle in the north.

White noise
Fly in your ear?  Or just white noise?  Yes if you’re having trouble hearing us correctly maybe you need some help.  Hearing impairment can be caused by a number of conditions from heredity disposition, ear wax, constant abuse by loud noises and of course deterioration as you age.

At Castle Hearing Aids we can help you identify the cause of your problem with the help of a professional audiologist who will test both ears.  From there we can assess how we might be able to help you further with digital hearing aids.  If you’d like to arrange for a test or learn more, please call us on 01782 698090.

Ancient buildings
Cheadle Hulme has other ancients besides you! Yes some of its buildings go back a long way.  Bramall Hall for instance dates from the 14th Century so it’s little wonder that it has Grade I listing.  (It’s a shame we can’t claim similar credence when we reach a certain age!)

Bramall Hall is a Tudor manor house complete with signature black and white timber frame.  It can be found at the heart of 70 acres landscaped parkland, a conservation area.  The general public are welcomed in both the park and the house.

An area in Cheadle Hulme namely Swann Lane, Hulme Hall Road and Hill Top Avenue also form a conservation area with 16th and 17th Century buildings with timber frames and Victorian homes.  The area also boasts two Grade II listed buildings, Hulme Hall, another timber framed manor house and 1 Higham Street.  The latter was once known as Hill Cottage and is built in a similar style to Hulme Hall, both date from 16th or 17th Century.  Hulme Hall is now a nursing home.

The 17th Century Millington Hall is also Grade II listed.  When you’re looking for it now, you’ll find it renamed as the John Millington pub!

The Kings Hall pub in Station Road only dates back to the 1930s when it was a dance hall complete with stage and orchestra pit.  During the 1960s some of the best know Liverpool bands played here – we wonder which ones?  Now it’s a pub.

Beautiful scenery
There are two main parks in the area.  Oak Meadow Park is in the centre of town and is mainly grass and woodland.  It’s a welcoming space to take a walk or relax in.  Many community projects use the park for annual events.

If you’re looking for somewhere with lots of activities then Bruntwood Park is the place.  The original manor house Bruntwood Hall built in the 19th Century is now offices but the park offers lots of fun activities from an 18 hole pitch and put course to a BMX track, football pitches to kids’ play areas.

War effort
Cheadle Hulme was host to evacuees in the Second World War from both Manchester and the Channel Islands.

RAF Handforth was a supply post during the war making sure that the RAF had everything they needed from knives and forks to engines.

Rich and famous
Cheadle Hulme has been responsible for some famous people over the years:

·         Tim McInnery aka Lord Percy in Black Adder was born in Cheadle Hulme.  Of course he has appeared in many productions apart from Black Adder including films Notting Hill and 101 Dalmatians, TV productions Spooks, Hustle and Dr Who.


·         Actress Kirsten Cassidy is best known for her role as Tania Young in Grange Hill.  Before that her roles were mostly in the theatre – Wind in the Willows, Our day Out and The Sound of Music.  She can now be seen appearing in Coronation Street.  She is playing a sixth former known for her flirting.


·         In 1933 John Mayall was born here.  He was later to become a blues singer and self-taught guitarist, pianist and harmonica player and went onto to have a prolific recording career which started in 1965 until the present day.  Over the years he has worked with other famous names including Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and Mick Taylor.

·         Mathematician Patrick du Val who was born in 1903 was a sickly child and was mostly home-schooled.  Later he was accepted at Trinity College Cambridge where he studied for a PhD.  His model of algebraic  geometry the ‘du Val singularity’ was named after him.


·         Violinist Jennifer Pike won the title of Young Musician of the Year when she was twelve years old.  After this achievement she went onto play at a number of major venues.  She won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  She is currently attending Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford studying – you guessed - music.


·         Cheadle Hulme is also the birthplace of the founder of the Women’s Royal Air Force, Felicity Peake.

Which bands did you hear?
Did you see and hear the Beatles play in Cheadle Hulme in the 1960s?  Or was it The Searchers or the Merseybeats?  Bet you hearing was up for it then.

If now your hearing ain’t what it used to be, don’t suffer in silence, get in touch with us.  Remember we can organise an audiologist to come out to you to test your ears or of course you can come to us.  You can email us via the website or give us a call on 01782 698090.

Digital Hearing Aids Altringham – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids

Digital Hearing Aids Altringham – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids 

A mere 8 miles south west of Manchester you’ll find Altringham which is now an affluent commuter market town.

It seems there has been life in Altringham, or at least where the town now sits, since prehistoric times.  Neolithic arrowheads have been found there.  Also part of a very important Roman road that linked Chester to York runs through the Broadheath district of the town.

Altringham got its market charter once the Normans invaded Britain. There is no mention of the town in the Domesday Book but the area was ‘owned’ by Hamon de Massey.  He granted the borough a free charter for a market at the end of the 13th Century.  This is the first official mention of Altringham – or Altrincham as it was spelt then – in any records.  It is very likely that Massey established the market and planned the town as a way of collecting taxes.  It was unusual to find planned market towns at this period in history.

Like many other towns in the area, Altringham originally relied on agriculture as its main source of income.  At the beginning of the 19th Century the textile industry had a presence in the area and Altringham had four cotton mills, however these were soon lost to other areas nearby.

By the beginning of the First World War Altringham had established a thriving industrial area in Blackheath.  Companies mainly focusing on heavier industry such as the Budenberg Gauge Company, Tilghmans Sand Blast and the Linotype and Machinery Company established their businesses here.

History lives on
The Old Market Place in Altringham is probably the site of the original town.  The area has several part timber framed buildings and is now a conservation area.  In fact ten of the 21 conservation areas in Trafford are in Altringham. That’s quite some count.

Altringham used to have a Buttermarket too.  This seems to have been a very important place in the local community.  It was used as a place of justice; there was a courtroom above the market and stocks and a whipping post here were all used to keep order.  In front of the market there was also a market cross where local couples made their declarations of love and their intentions official – a sort place of engagement.  Unfortunately the Buttermarket ceased to exist during the 19th Century.  The town lost a real historic treasure.  Local traders reinstated a whipping post and stocks in the 1990s to attract tourists.

The Old Market Place was where the ancient market was held.  Nowadays a market is still held every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday in the listed Market Hall which was built in 1930.  There are other markets held here at other times – a Farmers  Market, a craft market and an antiques market.

Did you know?
In the 1830’s a man sold his wife here for the equivalent of 7.5p.  He believed this was completely legal as long as he provided a halter to go over her head!  Charming!

This probably wasn’t quite as strange as it sounds.  Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge starts off with a ‘wife sale’.  He wrote this book in the 1880s.  Thank goodness times have changed.

What did you say?
Eh did you hear that right?  Yes you did!  Selling your wife or husband in the market place certainly isn’t legal now.

But if you’re concerned about the quality of your hearing, we can arrange for a professional audiologist to test both of your ears.  This will assess any damage or deterioration so that we are then in a position to advise you on a course of action.

The test is simple.  The audiologist tests both ears using tonal sounds and records the response using a computerised system.  See what others say.

If you’d like to know more or set up an appointment give us at Hearing Aids Stoke on Trent a call on 01782 698090.

Houses of Interest
Nearby Dunham Massey Hall, built in the 18th Century, was once home to the Earl of Stamford.  Its current owner is the National Trust and has been since 1976.

There is evidence of the early existence of this building as it appeared in the Domesday Book.  In fact there are as many as 45 buildings on the site that are all Grade II listed.  It is said to have belonged to a Saxon nobleman, Aelfward and when the Normans came it was taken over by Hamon de Massey.  It remained the family seat of the Masseys until the 14th Century when there were no heirs to carry on the family line.

The current building was built in the 17th Century for the Earl of Warrington.  Alterations were made some hundred years later, when the family had merged by marriage to the Stamford line making the title Earl of Stamford and Warrington.  The house is surrounded by a moat and a deer park.

Royd House
This much newer building was built at the beginning of the 20th Century by a local architect as his home.  He was Edgar Wood who was influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau.
Royd House has a flat concrete roof and was very forward-looking for the time.  It is now Grade I listed.

A disused Christian Scientist Church that he designed is now a cultural centre in Manchester bearing his name.

People you might know
Considering Altringham’s affluence there only seem to be a few notable people connected to this town.  Some you might know are:

·         The 19th Century artist Helen Allingham grew up in Altringham.  She became well known for her paintings of the Surrey and Sussex countryside where she lived later in life

·         Author of the Little Grey Rabbit books, Alison Uttley.  She wrote over a 100 books

·         Dramatist Ronald Gow who is best remembered for his production of Walter Greenwood’s book, Love on the Dole

·         Angela Cartwright, the actress who starred as Brigitta Von Trapp in the Sound of Music film and appeared as Penny in the 1960’s TV series Lost in Space

·         Two of the Stone Roses were educated at Altringham Grammar School, namely Ian Brown and John Squire

·         The Red Dean of Canterbury, Hewlet Johnson started his career as curate at St Margaret’s Church in Altringham.  He set up a hospital with his wife for wounded soldiers returning from the First World War.  As a committed Christian Marxist he supported Russia which is how he gained his nick name


We are just a phone call away
Yes all it takes is a phone call or an online message and we can help you with your hearing problem.  Don’t waste any more time being frustrated with your ability – or lack of – to hear clearly.  Send us a message or call us on 01782 698090.

Digital Hearing Aids Wilmslow – Cheshire Digital Hearing Aids

Digital Hearing Aids Wilmslow – Cheshire Digital Hearing Aids 

Affluent Wilmslow just 11 miles south of Manchester is famous for its ‘Cheshire lifestyle’.  The expensive houses, designer shops and good restaurants are magnets for famous footballers and of course their wives and families.  This also helps to attract other ‘wannabe’s’ to the area.

In fact Wilmslow lies within the Golden Triangle of well-heeled locations in this area, which also include Alderney Edge and other villages such as Knutsford and Prestbury.  Not surprisingly this is a Conservative stronghold with the current parliamentary representative George Osborne, also holding the post of Chancellor.

When the railways arrived in the area back in Victorian times it made Wilmslow commutable.  This enabled the wealthy businessmen of the time to move out of Manchester and so the bar was set.  It has remained a ‘desirable’ location to live ever since.

Football fever
Back in 1924 before Wilmslow and the surrounding area became the home of choice to our top professional football players, two brothers set up a workshop in the town to produce sports wear.  Harold Humphreys, one of the brothers, had seen the way football was fast becoming a national obsession.  One example being how crowds in excess of 200,000 flocked to the cup final at Wembley in the previous year.  He took his tailoring skills and set up the company, Umbro an acronym of Humphrey Brothers.

Their first football kit was produced for the FA Cup in 1934 between Manchester City and Portsmouth.  Both teams wore kit by Umbro and they became the official FA Cup supplier and sponsor of the Football Association.

Over the years Umbro has provided uniforms for the British Olympic team, tennis and produced other sports gear.  The company started to produce their own football boots in the 1980s.  Umbro has supplied kits globally to a number of different football playing countries.  Having sold to Nike Inc in 2007, they have now been sold onto Iconix.

Umbro has sponsored many footballers over the years including Denis Law (Manchester United and Scotland), Alan Shearer (Newcastle United and England) and Michael Owen  at the age of 14 (Manchester United and England).  Currently they sponsor England players Joe Hart, Andy Caroll, Andre Wisdom and Kevin Nolan.  They also sponsor Peruvian player Juan Vargas and a number of teams in the UK and all around the world.

Earlier residents
Nearby Lindow Moss turned out to be the long-term home of an ancient resident of the area.  The body which had been preserved by the peat bog was found in 1984 when professional peat cutters were going about their work.  The previous year Lindow Woman – or at least her head -had been found in the same area.

Lindow Man has been identified as a healthy male (when he was alive obviously) in his 20s who appears to have met with a violent death.  He was strangled and hit on the head and as if that wasn’t enough, his throat was cut.  Brutal to say the least.  The body and the head have been radiocarbon dated as being around 2000 years old making them from the Iron Age.  Lindow Man who is sometimes referred to as ‘Pete Marsh’ has been preserved by freeze drying.  He is on show at the Manchester Museum if you want to meet him.

Sorry I didn’t catch that
Well one thing’s for certain poor old Lindow Man certainly can’t hear anymore.  Reduced hearing is sometimes caused by the ears being blocked by wax, but we’re guessing it was peat in his case.
How are yours?  Hearing Aids Stoke-on-Trent has all the expertise to assess you.  Failing hearing can be due to many things – though rarely peat blocking – and can happen at any time in your life.  Don’t suffer in silence, let us help you.  We are just at the end of a telephone line (01782 698090) and waiting for your call.

Wilmslow makes the headlines
In 1997 two IRA bombs went off on the rail tracks near Wilmslow railway station; fortunately no one was hurt although there was extensive damage.

Famous residents of Wilmslow
As we’ve said Wilmslow attracts many notable people to this desirable area.  As well as footballers, actors and show business personalities are also fond of the town.  Here’s a few that we know of:

·         Long-serving Coronation Street actor William Roache known for his role as Ken Barlow

·         Sir Alex Ferguson long time manager of Manchester United

·         Kerry Katona who initially made her name as part of girl band Atomic Kitten

·         Tenor Russell Watson who had two brain tumours that interrupted his singing career in 2005 and 2007

·         There’s a blue plaque on the wall outside the former home of Alan Turing here who was instrumental in developing computer science

·         Author Alan Garner famous for his children’s books is a local resident

·         Another Coronation Street  actor who lives here is Simon Gregson famous for his part as Steve MacDonald

·         South Korean footballer Park Ji-Sung made his home here too during his time at Manchester United.  He currently plays for Queens Park Rangers

·         More players living the footballer’s lifestyle in Wilmslow include Manchester United players Nemanja Vidic, Luis Nani, Antonio Valencia, Phil Jones, Federico Macheda, Patrice Evra, Ashley Young and of course, Wayne Rooney

·         Manchester City players living here include Yava Toure, Joleon Lescott, David Silva, Joe Hart and Gareth Barry


Sending up a cheer
Wilmslow is like football city!  Can you hear the cheers from where you live?  If you’re having trouble with that maybe it’s time to get a hearing test.  We can offer you a professional audiologist to test both ears – it’s important to test both – so that we can assess how we can help.  Digital hearing aids for both ears make a world of difference and really help you to hear better.
This has to be tempting.  Give us a call on 01782 698090 or make an online enquiry here so that we can get the ball rolling!

Digital Hearing Aids Wigan – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids

Digital Hearing Aids Wigan – Greater Manchester Digital Hearing Aids

If you come from Wigan, did you know that you share your home with Heinz Baked Beans, The Verve and Wigan Pier and that Wigan Warriors were one of the founding members of the Northern Rugby League?

Well listen up all you pie-eaters and we’ll tell you the stories of these iconic links to Wigan.  If you aren’t hearing us too well, we know somewhere that can help – see here.  Yes if you have hearing problems that may have been caused by a number of reasons, we know that our team at Castle Hearing Aids can help.  Please get in touch by calling 01782 698090 to book a hearing test or make an enquiry.

Pie eaters
This local term for people from Wigan has nothing to do with their consumption of a local delicacy.  It dates back to the General Strike in 1926, when hunger forced local miners back to work before the strike was finished.  They were said to have eaten humble pie.

Since 1992 Wigan has held a World Pie Eating Championship as a tribute.  In 2005 the winner ate seven pies in three minutes.  However, government guidelines about Health & Safety caused a change in the rules the following year with the award going to the person who ate a pie in the shortest amount of time.  The reigning champion, Paul Gott ate his in 12.91 seconds in 2012.

Beanz means Heinz
We’ve all grown up eating baked beans.  The brand name Heinz like Hoover is almost a generic term for baked beans generally.

Although they were first produced in the United States in 1901, they very quickly gained popularity once they were introduced over here.  Fortnum and Mason was the first store to stock them also in 1901.  It was a few years later that factories in the London area were set up to produce them.  But it wasn’t until 1946 that production moved to Wigan.  Now it is the biggest food production site in Europe producing 1 billion cans of beans every year.

During the Second World War baked beans were classed as an essential food for rationing purposes.

Did you know that a lorry full of baked beans recently crashed and shed its load on the M6?  Fortunately no beans were harmed during the incident!

Interesting facts: Beecham’s Pills were first manufactured by Thomas Beecham in Wigan and Michael Marks opened a penny bazaar and warehouse in Wigan in the 19th Century and went on to found Marks & Spencer.

The Verve
The 90’s band The Verve met and formed at Winstanley Sixth Form College in Wigan.  The initial line up was Richard Ashcroft, Nick McCabe, Peter Salisbury and Simon Jones.  Simon Tong, a school friend of Richard Ashcroft, joined them later.

They were popular on the ‘indie’ scene at first, moving more mainstream with their third album, Urban Hymns and the release of the single Bitter Sweet Symphony which was a worldwide hit.  The release of a second single from the album, The Drugs Don’t Work gave them their first UK no 1 single.

The band split for the second time in 1999 and are all pursuing other career paths.

Interesting fact: Wigan is also home to Starsailor and Limahl from 1980’s band Kajagoogoo, as well as folk-rock band The Tansads.

Wigan Warriors
Wigan Warriors who play in the Super League currently hold the League Leaders Shield.  The team also holds the accolade for being one of the founding members of the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895.

This was the breakaway group from the Rugby Football Union.  The reason was all to do with money.  The Rugby Football Union insisted that the sport kept its amateur status and would not pay the ‘broken time’ payments for players missing work.  There was a big north/south divide over the matter.  Most of the northern players were working class and could not afford to take time off work without pay.  In the south it was argued that the sport was more middle class and players could afford to take the time off without compensation.  There was also concern that there were more southern players on the board which met in London, again making it difficult for northern players to be a part of it.

Wigan Warriors were one of 20 clubs which came out in support of Huddersfield who broke away first.

The club was founded in 1872 by members of the local cricket club and are the most successful rugby league club in the UK.  They have won many accolades over the years, some of them several times, including being World Cup Champions three times.  They play at the DW Stadium which has a capacity for more than 25,000.

Wigan Pier
Wigan Pier was once just a music hall joke for a wooden jetty, where the coal was loaded onto boats on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Wigan.

The term Wigan Pier, which is ironic, is thought to have been coined by George Formby Senior on the Music Hall stage and continued by his son, the ukulele playing George Formby Junior.  The term certainly stuck.  Now it is the name for the area at the bottom of the Wigan locks on the canal.

Of course there was nothing glamorous about Wigan Pier with its location in the middle of an industrial town.  This is probably why author George Orwell used it for the title of his book The Road to Wigan Pier.  The book was a dark account of how Britain’s poor lived and worked in the 1930s.  Although Orwell didn’t paint a pretty picture of the area or the conditions, he is said to have liked the people.

The original wooden jetty was demolished around 1929.  It was at the end of a narrow gauge railway which ran from one of the 1,000 collieries in the area to the water’s edge.  Nowadays there are no collieries and factories on the canal banks have been converted to housing.  The canal itself is only used for pleasure boats nowadays.

Interesting fact: Other writers who commented on the town are 17th Century travel writer Celia Fiennes and Bill Bryson who also writes about travel, language and science.

Northern Soul
During the 1960s and 70s Wigan was the heart of Northern Soul or at least its ‘spiritual home’.  Wigan Casino was voted the best disco in the world by American music magazine Billboard in 1978.  Northern Soul was a music genre that originated in the north and was heavily influenced by 1960’s Motown.  Dance styles inspired by it include Disco and Break Dancing.

Interesting fact: Soft Cell’s 80’s hit Tainted Love was originally recorded by a Northern Soul artist.  Other more recent artists to have been influenced by Northern Soul include Moloko, Duffy and Plan B.

Hearing the vibe
If you can’t enjoy music as you’d like to or if listening to too much loud music at concerts is the downfall of your current state of hearing, have you considered having your ears checked?  At Castle Hearing Aids we can test and assess the state of your hearing and by using digital hearing aids, help to improve your capacity.
Don’t stay out in the cold any longer, let us help.  Get in touch today either via our online form or give us a call on 01782 698090