That vanished road in Chorlton ……… 1907 - 1937 RIP

I won’t be the only one in Chorlton who is fascinated by the lost roads of Chorlton.

Some just changed their name, but others have vanished completely.

And one of those is Cardiff Road which was off Longford Road. 

Cardiff Road, 1937

It consisted of 12 two up two down properties and dates from sometime after 1901 and had but a short life.

So, while it doesn’t appear on the 1901 census, it is on a street directory two years later and crops up on various historical records until 1939.

It is a place I have written about but never really dug deep into its story.

But today I have redressed that omission, mainly because of a press cutting sent over by Chris Geliher who added "Hi Andrew. Came upon this clipping from the M/c City News 16/7/37. Thought you might be interested on the off chance that you haven't already seen it”.

Cardiff Road, 1907

And of course, I was very interested because it offered up the first clue as to why Cardiff Road had been expunged from the record.

According to the Manchester City News the Corporation had approved the “recommendation to demolish nos. 2-18 , inclusive Cardiff-road, Chorlton, as being unfit for human habitation”, adding that Dr Veitch Clarke, the Medical Officer of Health for the City Council had pointed out that the houses were “not capable at a reasonable expense of being rendered fit” to live in.*

Now I would dearly like to know who had built the properties and who rented them out, if only to search for similar “rundown” houses that the landlord was responsible for in Chorlton.  Alas the Rate Books that can be accessed online stop in 1900, and there appears at present no other reference to ownership in the historic records.

But looking at the census return for 1911 there is much to shudder at, not least because some of the properties were incredibly overcrowded.

At number 20 Annie Elizabeth Wilson shared the house with her eight children ranging in age from 20 down to 5, while at 24, Mr. Devine and his wife lived with four children, a nephew, a sister in law and two lodgers.

Cardiff Road, 2015

Nor are these two houses the exception.   At number 2, Jane Fitzgerald lived with her two children and a lodger, and at 12 there were a total of seven people.

Perhaps most shocking is the census return for number 8 which revealed two families inhabiting the one house, consisting of one family of six and another of 4.

At present there is no way of knowing just how poorly built the properties were, but their very short life suggests that they were not the best in the housing stock of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Indeed, they back onto our own brick works which might offer up a possible landlord.

A decade on in 1921 there was still evidence of overcrowding in almost all of the four roomed houses and severe overcrowding in two.  

Cardiff Road, 1911

What is in interesting from both the 1911 and 1921 census returns is that few of the inhabitants were linked to the brick trade, and only one man in 1921 was directly employed at the brick works and he described himself as unemployed.  

Others worked for the grocery chain Twfords in Chorlton, two were employed by Manchester Corporation, one was a carter, and another was a warehouseman for J. R. Smith on Ducie Street in town.

All of which leaves me with that opening sentence from the newspaper report which proclaimed “Chorlton often described as Manchester’s most select residential suburb has come under the slum clearance activities for the authorities”.

So despite the detractors who shout that Chorlton has become a “twee place” to live, there were those who thought it so over eighty years ago.  Didsbury please take note.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; A Chorlton “Slum” 9 Dwelling Houses to be Demolished, Manchester City News, July 16th, 1937, courtesy of Chris Geliher, Cardiff Road, 1907 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1907, and in 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson

*A Chorlton “Slum” 9 Dwelling Houses to be Demolished, Manchester City News, July 16th, 1937

Living in a two roomed cottage in a Manchester court in 1851

You won’t find Span Court I know I tried.  But I do know where it was and where it had been when it was home to hundreds of families from about 1780 till sometime after 1965.

It was one of those bits of infill, the product of speculative builders trying to squeeze as many houses as possible onto a small piece of land.  In this case the plot was off Artillery Street which runs from Byrom Street to Longworth Street behind Deansgate.  Courts like these might hold half a dozen houses which faced each other across an open paved area and in some cases were locked away behind other properties, with access down narrow alleyways.

Many were back to back houses consisting of just two rooms, made from poor quality materials with party walls which were just half a brick thick and floors laid directly onto the bare earth.
My great grandmother grew up in just such a property in Whiteman’s Yard and those in Span Court were little different.  True they had cellars which still in the middle of the 19th century might be occupied by families, but otherwise they resembled the one she was born in.

In 1844 Manchester stopped the building of new houses which did not have running water and a toilet in the house or the yard which meant that no back to back houses or courts were built, although in neighbouring Bradford and Openshaw such properties continued to be constructed.  By 1900 there were only 5,000 back to backs left in the city and these had all been removed or converted  to ‘through’ houses by 1939.*

Span Court consisted of six such properties.  The eastern side of the court backed on to three identical houses fronting Swan Court while the western three were set up against industrial buildings which later became a hospital.

And in those six houses in 1851 lived a total of thirty-three people who made their living from the bottom end of economic pile.  And so while there were 6 power loom weavers and a cooper and dress maker there were also an errand boy, a hawker and one who described himself as a pauper.

Now over the next few weeks I will be delving deeper into Spam Court and trying to tell its story, looking at the people who lived there and the surrounding streets.

*Parkinson-Bailey, John P, Manchester University Press, 2000

Pictures; Span Court in 1965 J. Ryder, m00211, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, Span Court from the 1842-44 OS map of Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Artillery Street looking up from Byrom Street with Span Court off to the right,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Posters from the Past ........... no 20 ......... coming home

Now the project is simple, take an image of a building or “thing” we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.*

Peter and I have been creating such advertising pieces of art for a while.

I source the original image and offer the caption and Peter does the rest.

So here is our take on a series of posters which could have been commissioned by the Eltham Tourist Board celebrating where we live.

Follow the link Posters from the Past, and you can find others from the Friends of Woolwich, the Thames Foot Tunnels Appreciation Society, and Retired Eltham Librarians.

And a thank you to Jean and Richard Low who one day back in 2012 drove around Eltham taking pictures for the blog, one of which Peter used for our poster.

Location: Eltham

Painting; The 161, © 2020 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures, from a photograph by Jean Low, 2012

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 

*Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past

Two hundred and thirty-nine Salford listed buildings …… and two pictures

 There are two hundred and thirty-nine Salford listed buildings, and they range from two 16th century ones, a heap from the 19th century and those three totem sculptures from 1966.*

Kersal Cell, circa 1950s

I toyed with writing about all of them, but it’s been done and anyway as a Londoner who has lived in Manchester for 57 years, I bet there will be a few from Salford who think me presumptuous.

So instead, I will focus on just one which I came to via Derrick Lea who in the 1950s and 60s drew pictures of many iconic Greater Manchester buildings.

And amongst the collection was this one of Kersal Cell. It was granted Grade: ll* status in 1952 and is described as “of special architectural or historic interest”.

To which Historic England adds that it was a “Manor house, later restaurant. C16 with later additions. Timber-framed with plaster infill on a sandstone base. Concluding “the house stands on the site of Lenton Priory, a C12 Cluniac house. It was the home of John Byrom, shorthand writer, and author of 'Christians Awake’". **

There is more from my trusty Wikipedia which tells me "Kersal Priory, also known as St Leonard's, is a priory in Kersal. It is classed as an alien priory or hermitage and was populated by Cluniac monks. The priory was dependent on Lenton in Nottinghamshire. Founded between 1145 and 1453, it was granted title by Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester sometime after 1143, became denizen independent from 1392, and was dissolved in 1538. One of the buildings, Kersal Cell, is still extant; a Grade II* listed building, it is now a private residence".**

I make no apologies for lifting the information from other sources and fall back on that well known justification which runs, “using one source is copying, using more is research".

Bridgewater Canal, Worsley

Added to which the historical background is merely to give context to Mr. Lea’s picture.

And having done that I will add his equally excellent drawing of the Bridgewater Canal and Worsley Old Hall leaving you to do your own research on both and discover the equally interesting Worsley Hall Icehouse, which to confuse matters belonged to the new Hall but does also have a grade II listing.

Leaving me just to say that I am a great fan of Derrick Lea’s work which extends to his wartime years with the RAF in Arica as well scenes of staff and patients from three Manchester hospitals.

He was born in 1920, lived in Chorlton and drew much of the twin cities and the places beyond.

At which point I stand corrected as Bill Sumner  has pointed out "The building you show next to the canal is the Packet House, Worsley Old Hall is a quarter mile away, presently used as a Pub and Restaurant at the side of the Golf Course. Worsley New Hall long since demolished is half a mile the other way towards Boothstown, now home to RHS Garden Bridgewater".

Location; Kersal and Worsley

Pictures; Kersal Cell, and Bridgewater Canal, courtesy of Jon and Hazel Lea

* Salford Listed Buildings, Salford City Council, https://www.salford.gov.uk/planning-building-and-regeneration/conservation-and-listed-buildings/salfords-heritage-assets/listed-buildings/ 

**Kersal Cell, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1386144

***Kersal Priory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kersal_Priory

Till & Kennedy's on Cavendish Street ........... or if you prefer Mr Righton's Drapery Emporium and the Student's Union

Now this is one or those buildings which will mean many things to many people.

Righton's Buildings in 2015

For some it will be the old show rooms and for me and some of my generation Manchester Polytechnic’s first proper Student Union.

Before then the three colleges pretty much did their own thing with their own bars.

The College of Commerce on Aytoun Street where I went was known for some pretty spectacular Saturday nights with big bands, the Art College may have done the same but I doubt that much happened down at John Dalton

Detail including Mr Righton's name, 2015

All of which is outrageously  biased but fits with someone who wasn’t even aware of the other two sites until sometime in late 1970 almost a year after I begun at the “college of knowledge.”

Nor can I be fully sure when the Till Kennedy Building opened for pints, bands and much more.

One source has it throwing back its doors in 1969, before which it had been Till & Kennedy’s the ironmongers.

Righton's in 1958

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”*

Righton's in 2015

It had a short life as a student’s union and has been used by various faculties of the Poly and the MMU.

I remember visiting it to look at the collection of taped memories of life in Manchester in the first half of the last century but as much as I tried my mind wandered to disco nights and of a particularly magic evening with Osibisa.

Added to which there were those endless student general meetings where our own version of politics was played, all of which was I suspect a long way from Mr Righton’s bolt of blue cloth or Till and Kennedy’s taps and assorted iron ware.

Pictures; the Righton Building, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson and in 1958, H.W.Beaumont, m19060, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

Well Hall in the 1920s nu 1 ........... catching the train and watching out for the cows

A short occasional series on Well Hall in the 1920s.

Now I washed up in Eltham in the spring of 1964 and for two and half years made the daily  train journey back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys School which continued until I switched to Crown Woods.

I didn’t like Samuel Pepys over much and the trip from Well Hall to New Cross and back was pretty much the best bit of the day.

Even now I have fond memories of seeing the woods above out house come into view ast thetrain took that final bend and came into the station.

The trains were always packed but there was something about knowing you were coming home to Well Hall.

And I suspect Mr Jefferson may have shared that feeling, so here are some of his memories of the same station just 40 or so years before I used the station.

They are taken from the book he published in 1970.

“The railway station was called simply ‘Well Hall’ when we came and the platforms were not so long as they are now.  

A workman’s ticket cost 8d return to London and early workers making their way past the tumbledown ‘Well Hall’ which is now the Pleasaunce would frequently be hindered by cows coming up hawthorn-hedged Kidbrooke Lane and turning in at the wide gate in Well Hall Road.”*

Location; Well Hall

Picture; the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 page 202

Snaps of Chorlton No 2 Beech Road, 1935 King George V’s Jubilee

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Beech Road, 1935

Today we are on Beech Road during the Jubilee of King George V.  I cannot be exact but it will have been between May 6th and May 12th.

It was taken by Marjorie’s sister sometime in the afternoon.

Despite its’ lack of clarity there is enough here to give us a flavour of Beech Road in the 1930s.

To our immediate left is the wall in front of Row House and the adjoining building which by 1929 was the Grange Laundry.  And beyond on the corner of Acres Road was William Allen the iron monger’s who has dropped his canopy to shield the shop from the bright spring sunshine and like all the shop keepers of the period has some at least of his wares on display outside.

It is a fine May day and the bright sunshine has brought out the people, even so there is enough of a breeze to lift the flag and bunting.

And I suppose the thing that most marks this off from today is the absence of cars.  There well away up Beech Road at the corner of Chequers Road is the only one.

What also makes the picture just that little bit more priceless is that the young girl in the foreground is Marjorie.

Picture; Beech Road, 1935, from the collection of Marjorie Holmes