According to Gore's Directory, in 1829 George Ellwood was a stage-coach proprietor at 176 Dale Street working for Angel Inn and Star offices. By 1830 he had crossed the street literally and metaphorically and was working for the competition, the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Company (L&MR). Ellwood was in charge of the passenger booking operation in central Liverpool and was paid £200 per annum, general clerks receiving roughly half this amount (Donaghy, p.142).

The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Office was at 23 Dale Street in 1830, probably #47 following street renumbering in the 1880s. Adverts in Walker's book for Eastwood's Royal Hotel on Moorfields describe it as "adjoining" the railway office while the Wellington Inn on the other side of Moorfields describes it as "next to" it, the Commercial Hotel being "opposite" (proximity was clearly a selling-point).

It seems likely therefore that the Royal Hotel ran to the junction of Dale Street and Moorfields and that the Dale Street office was the next (middle) shop along in the same short block terminated at the other side by Bachelor Street (roughly opposite Stanley Street on the other side of Dale Street). Indeed, the location seems to have been a hardware shop and subsequently reverted to shop use when Lime Street opened in 1836. In the meantime Gore's Directory confusingly shows it as belonging to the Manchester & Liverpool Rail Road Company (the Clayton Square office has a similar attribution).

Although there was a lot of development on Dale Street during the 19th century, the shop does not seem to have been affected. It can be seen on a fire insurance map as #47 (the adjacent hotel had gone by then, the building being labelled Liverpool Household Stores Association) and distantly in this aerial photo dating from 1946.

The OpenSim build shown in the picture above attempts to recreate some of the scene although information on the appearance of the office at this time is sadly lacking from general texts.

From the start first class passengers had use of a horse-drawn omnibus service that took one of three routes from Dale Street to the railway station at Crown Street, a journey of 1.5 miles scheduled to take 20 minutes including any stops en route (Dawson, p.87). At this time it cost 2s 6d (12.5p) to get a cab to Crown Street from Dale Street when the single first class fare to Manchester was 7s so the free ride was a bonus.

Nothing remains of the Dale street office or, indeed, Bachelor Street, the block having been subsumed by a modern building as shown below.

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