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After posting a photo of the Golden Anchor on our Heritage Facebook page, it sparked off a raft of comments from times gone by. So here are all those memories alongside the history of the building.
The actual building of a pair of shops was in 1930 by Harry Ambrose. His family over the years had run the mill and corner shop alongside it. The mill had ceased trading in 1925. It was a fish and chip shop with living quarters above. On the 1939 register, at number 2 Finney Lane, William Heatherington Owen from Crewe lived there with his wife Dinah, whom he had married in 1937. She did domestic duties and helped out in the shop.
Next came the Blount family who lived and worked there. It was chip shop café.
“In 1946 it was owned by the Blounts with a chippy and dining area. I was at school with their daughter Janet.”
- Shirley Slack, Facebook 2022
“The Blounts ran the fish and chip shop. They did not cook with oil but over a fire on a range.”
- Ray Hodgkinson, In conversation 2023
“Mr and Mrs Blount and their daughter Janet were there in the 50s.”
- Anne Rostron, Facebook 2022
The Cusick family were there in the 1960s, perhaps even the late 1950s, and now the family and their son live in Ashton. They operated the business as a greengrocers and chippy for a time.
“I remember 50s and 60s it was a chippy on the right hand side and greengrocers on the left. Best chippy around, in fact I’m sure it was the only chippy around. I’ve just remembered at one point the greengrocer’s side was a café for the chippy.”
- Lynda Jackson, Facebook 2022
“The Cusick family said they were there in the 1960s. It was half chippy, half greengrocer, then a chippy full time, then a café/chippy. As the chippy was making more money.”
- Lisa Lewis, Facebook 2022
“I remember it as a chippy. Adrian Bowers and I used to have dinner (usually chips, pie and gravy) in the seated area at the back. So naughty that we sometimes unscrewed the salt pot before leaving. Sorry if the owners are on here!”
- Andy Holloway, Facebook 2022
The chippy then became the Finney Lane Supper Bar in the 1970s, run by the Carroll family, who were remembered by many.
“There was a cafe area when it was Vinnys/The Carrolls. Great memories of "sitting in" for fish chips and peas and a glass of Jusoda, half a crown before we went decimal.”
- Adrian Bowers, Facebook 2025
“Early seventies, there used to be an English chippy here, run by a husband and wife team, ....best steak pudding I have ever tasted! We used to go there from the airport and then across to the Griffin....needless to say our work input was very slow!”
- Colin Law, Facebook 2025
“They were called the Carrolls....had many, many fish and chip meals from there. Fried in beef dripping. Back in the days when bitter in the Griffin was 28 pence a pint. We could go out as a group of us and sit there having a few rounds of that awful Holt’s beer, go over to the chippy, get the best fish and chips money could buy, and still have change out of a fiver....... showing my age now!”
- Iain Irvine, Facebook 2025
“He was called Vinny as my dad always says that they were the best fish and chips!”
- Claire Louise Gibson, Facebook 2025
“I remember my parents calling the chippy Vin’s when I was a kid. That was before Michael took it over and introduced Heald Green to the magic of Doner Kebabs!”
- Will Yates, Facebook 2025
“It was definitely Vinny Carroll and his wife was called Diane.”
- Patricia Morris, Facebook 2025
“When I was a kid in the early 70s, the chip shop opposite the Griffin was always referred to as Vinny’s chippy. I remember the queues into the street, which I guess would be a Saturday lunchtime. I was also fascinated by their potato chipper machine- a genius invention.”
- Heather Smith, Facebook 2025
“I remember the chip shop approx. 1976 being run by a large family, approx. 6 children and the owner and his wife did the frying. My husband bought a restaurant and he taught him how to fillet fish. Very nice people.”
- Iris Thorley, Facebook 2025
“The children were Mike, John, Francis, Louise, David and Helen. Me and my brother were friends with them. We used to get to choose from what they hadn’t sold on a Saturday lunchtime. What a treat it was.”
- Terina Salton, Facebook 2025
“I remember being friends with their son Dave. I think he was the youngest who would always turn up at my house when I first got married, at teatime for feeding.”
- Tracy McDonald, Facebook 2025
“I remember it well, chips in newspaper. Their daughter was called Louise. Her dad had some sort of lump on his head.”
- Louise Golden, Facebook 2025
“I went to school with one of the sons, Francis, and he had a sister called Louise.”
- Ringway Paul, Facebook 2025
“Another girl called Helen, who was a friend of mine at Cheadle RC School.”
- Angela Lord, Facebook 2025
“It wasn’t called the Golden Anchor when I remember dad bringing fish and chips home after being at the Heald Green Social Club.”
- Alison Downes and Julie Burgess, Facebook 2025
If the Carrolls were remembered fondly then so was Mike, the Greek Cypriot who took over the chippy around 1982. The name changed to the Golden Anchor Fish Bar or just “Mike’s.”
Fig. 1 The Golden Anchor Fish Bar 1994
© Stockport Heritage Library
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“It was just a chippy in 1982 when I moved into the Griffin. Can’t remember his name, but a few months after, he sold it to Mike who was a Greek Cypriot.”
- Diane Elkington, Facebook 2022
“Michael made the best kebabs ever. Even now I still want one of them. The fish and chips before Michael took over were also the best, but I can’t remember his name.”
- David Armstrong, Facebook 2022
“Used to love the sign on the lamp post in front of the shop “parking for fish and chips only”. Who knew they could drive!”
- Julie Bamber, Facebook 2022
“Used to get a kebab from there at chucking out time from the Kenilworth.”
- Dek Whittle, Facebook 2022
“Mick the Greek owned it. Never found a better takeaway since-Them kebabs were to die for!”
- Bill Greaves, Facebook 2022
“Many a kebab in there mate.”
- Darren Woodward, Facebook 2022
“Yes Darren, many and how good they were. We even had a tab, so we could go in when we were skint, LOL.”
- Chris Bulmer, Facebook 2022
“It was the only place where you could get a kebab in Heald Green.”
- Dawn Ingham, Facebook 2025
“Used to love the rib burgers they did.”
- Marcus Mayes, Facebook 2025
“This brings back memories, used to go there quite often.”
- Jonathan Nobbs, Facebook 2025
“Went there after Friday’s LOL.”
- Wendy Morris, Facebook 2025
“Mike owned it when it was a kebab shop. Used to go in there every weekend after a night out. Always greeted with 'you ok brother'. Great guy.”
- Darren Thompson, Facebook 2025
“I used to pick up chippy after being in the Griffin to take home. Always greeted with 'hello my friend'. Nice bloke Mike.”
- Ray Dowthwaite, in conversation 2022
“Playing the arcade machine in the corner and just buying a can of coke.”
- Peter Barnes, Facebook 2025
“Loved that place as a chippy, it had an arcade machine in the corner too.”
- Thomas Parr, Facebook 2025
“My first introduction to kebabs. Loved them!!”
- Ade Cotter, Facebook 2025
“He was ace. Always used to give you free chips or donner meat while you were waiting.”
- Debz Schofield, Facebook 2025
“Mikes. He was Greek Cypriot, hated Turkey. He used to take as many rabbits or pheasants we could get him. I’m sure he said they went into the donner mix.”
- Richard Abbott, Facebook 2025
By the late 1990s Mike moved back to Cyprus and the shop became Turkish Flavours.
“The couple who ran it were actually Iranian. My late mate, who I used to go in there with after drinking in the Griffin, had picked up a bit of Farsi from his student lodger and would chat to them in it.
They were refugees from the Shah’s regime in the seventies. It was in the late nineties/early noughties, before the pub was redeveloped.”
- Matthew Thompson, Facebook 2025
“I never went but I remember it because my mate, the night he came back from Turkey, went there for a kebab.”
- Sam Stars, Facebook 2025
“Great kebabs, I always got one coming back from Dillon’s on a Friday night shift.”
- Thomas Parr, Facebook 2025
Fig. 2 Turkish Flavours April 2009
© Google Maps
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Turkish Flavours was still there in 2012. However, by 2015 a business called Chutney was there and at least in 2016 too.
Fig. 3 Chutney April 2015
© Google Maps
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Next came Ace by 2019, followed by Food Planet by 2021.
Fig. 4 Ace August 2019
© Google Maps
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Fig. 5 Food Planet January 2021
© Google Maps
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By 2022 the unit had split into two separate businesses again and Kana was in the right hand side, with Slims in the left hand side getting ready to open. An ironic name for a fast food takeaway!!
In October 2024, Slims became Jims.
Fig. 7 Slims and Kana August 2024
© Google Maps
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As of June 2025, Jims and Kana continue to trade from there. This year especially, the parking of the customers at Jims, has become a cause of annoyance for local residents. The matter is now in the hands of the local council and the police, to try and end the parking on double yellow lines, parking half on and half off the pavement on either side of the road, blocking the driveways of residents and pavements, causing problems for drivers and pedestrians. All this at a major road junction with Finney Lane and Wilmslow Road.
Jims is doing a roaring trade and all it can as a responsible business owner to limit the disruption. Unfortunately, at the moment this seems to be all in vain, with delivery drivers who call to collect orders. What is happening here?? No manners, no common courtesy, flouting of the highway code, as in the law.........why can’t people just be nice to each other anymore??
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