The photograph of the Promenade Café was taken during the Second
World War. Both the café and the shop on its left are Rockvale
House.
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.
The premises has small back yard that used to accommodate
a toilet and an old bake oven right up against the rock face,
but the oven eventually had to be removed.
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]. |
