If you go down to the graveyard today …. You’re sure of a big surprise* …..

 Well, “a big surprise” may be overstating the experience but yesterday I came across these stone setts.

Those mysterious stones, 2026

It’s an odd discovery given that I have alternatively walked through and sat in the old parish graveyard for over four decades.

They appear just to the north and west of the entrance to the old parish church.

Often, they are hidden under a mix of mud and leaf detritus, and I suppose are not that interesting, especially when set against the stone inscriptions of the surviving gravestones.

Once before the 1980s make over there were 362 of them ranging from austere and plain slabs to grand monumental records of lives lived out in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

But with the landscaping of the graveyard came a decision to dispose of most of them, leaving just a handful dotted around the gardens.  The fate of the majority is unclear, but I suspect they ended up as hard core in some motorway.

And with their departure was lost the records of so many of our residents who lived here in the 18th and 19 centuries. Apart from the scandal of destroying the memories of people whose relatives had invested time, money and emotion in recording their lives, there is that simple observation that so much of our history has been lost.

But setting that aside there is the mystery of this stretch of stones.

I wondered how long they had been there, and whether they were original dating from the 19th century into earlier.

I will have walked through the place long before the makeover, but I can’t remember seeing them.

And I suppose they may have been part of the landscaping especially as they appear to include a feature which looks to have been a space for a tree, now long since gone.

Gravestones and inscriptions, 1976

A similar pattern of stones appears around the memorial to PC Cook that policeman who was shot in the line of duty. His death was commemorated by an elaborate monument which was removed and is now in Preston, leaving the present stone slab which is faced with the same sets.

Looking back at the plan of the original 362 gravestone, our mystery spot was inhabited by four headstones of which only one has survived the cull.  This is to John, Margaret, James and John Renshaw who were interred between 121 and 1844.  

The Renshaw family, 2010

Alas those commemorating the Guy, Rogers, Lobley, Horsefield  and Heywood families no longer exist, and with them go the stories of Ann Guy who died aged 81Gertrude “infant daughter of William Henry and Georgina Rogers 8 months, 14days and great granddaughter f the above” and "Louisa Mary [also] daughter of William Henry and Georgina Rogers” who died at 15 months in the August of 1869.  Or Thomas who was the “son of Thomas and Elizabeth Gilmore” who died on July 21st 1870, just 2 months old.

Now set against these lost stories of grief, my stone sets don’t amount to much, but it would be fun to know who thought they should be placed here close to the church entrance.

There is a scheme of planting dating from April 1977 from Recreational Services Department of Manchester City Council which suggests that our spot was for either Lonicera Pileata “an unpretentious ever green plant” or Cytisus praecox a “flowering deciduous shrub”.

But which ever it was it has long gone along with the gravestones that occupied its place.

Location; Chorlton graveyard

Pictures; Chorlton graveyard, 2026, 2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the plan of the churchyard, Register Of Grave Descriptions, St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green,1976, RG 37/99, City Engineer and Surveyor, Town Hall, Manchester

*Teddy Bears Picnic,  Jimmy Kennedy, 1932

Walking the mean streets of Manchester in the 1880s ………

Now, many of us will have been brought up with the stories of the appalling housing conditions in our cities, towns, and villages in the 19th century.

New gates, 1908

Just a few minute’s stroll from the imposing and elegant Georgian and Victorian government and commercial buildings were scenes of awful poverty, where the casual observer and interested researcher ventured with some trepidation.

The accounts of Dr. Kay, Frederick Engels and a heap of other writers are testimony to “how the other half lived”.

In the later 19th century surveys like that undertaken by Booth and Rowntree catalogued the poverty, and inequality in health, and housing provision.

To these can be added an excellent set of maps and notes on Manchester during the 1880s which like Booth and Rowntree’s work offer-coloured coded maps along with detailed descriptions which come from the reports of the officer of  Health for Manchester.*

I had come across some while researching at Central Ref a few years ago, but last week Craig Thomas offered up a link to a whole of set of digitized maps and reports.

They really are a cornucopia of wonderful things including a map of the Enumerator Districts for the city for 1871, which will make it easier for anyone wanting to locate a street.

44 Angel Meadow, 1900

And that pretty much is that I could say more, but what would be the fun of distracting you from looking for yourself.

That said there is a nice short Manchester Evening News report of how the maps were digitized.

Read more; Manchester Housing Conditions; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Manchester%20housing%20conditions

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Pictures; New gates, 1908, m8316, Angel Street, 1900, m85543, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*Victorian Sanitary Survey Maps for Central Manchester, https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/ll/thumbnailView.html?startUrl=%2F%2Fluna.manchester.ac.uk%2Fluna%2Fservlet%2Fas%2Fsearch%3Fos%3D0%26lc%3Dmaps002~1~1%26q%3D%3D%22Project%3A%20Victorian%20Sanitary%20Survey%20Maps%20for%20central%20Manchester%22%26bs%3D100

**Forgotten maps of Manchester slums restored and available to view,  Nigel Barlow -April 3, 2019, https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/forgotten-maps-of-manchester-slums-restored-and-available-to-view/

Taking the petrol pump for granted ................ and other stories

Today and for the next few weeks I shall be celebrating the humble petrol pump, through the art work of my friend Ann Love.

A few weeks ago I wrote about those pre-war petrol cans which were essential, given the scarcity of petrol stations which forced motorists to carry a supply for emergencies.

They cans came in different shapes and colours and usually bore the name or logo of the petrol company.

And fired by that story Ann told me of an art project she undertook back in 1964 which
described the early history of the petrol pump and was illustrated by her own series of pictures.

I have to confess that I had not really given the petrol pump much thought, but like so many things it is a bit of our history which is easily taken for granted.

The idea had originated in the USA and was brought back to Britain by a member of the AA and in 1919 the AA opened ten filling stations which were staffed by their men in uniform who only sold to AA members.

Needless to say the concept caught on, and Ann went on to document the story through the inter war years and on into the 1960s.

It is a fascinating story but what really draws me to the project are Ann’s pictures which are now themselves a bit of our past.

A few depict petrol pumps and garages which were still standing relatively recently, including a pump at the bottom of Claude Road in Chorlton in south Manchester.

And I bet these pictures will set off a string of memories on the part of readers, who in turn might offer up their images and stories.

There my even be someone who remembers pumping the fuel from the pump by hand, and then checking the quantity in a measuring can, which as Ann observes was justified given that some garage owners fiddled the gauge.

But that is it for now.

Location; everywhere

Pictures; petrol pumps and filling stations 1963-64 from the collection of Ann Love

The Goldsmith Collection ....... no. 1 on the River

Now when our Jillian offered to share her portfolio of photographs with me and the blog I jumped at the offer.

There are some stunning pictures in the collection which makes me very proud of my little sister, but it is also that they capture so many places I grew up with but left behind over fifty years ago when I left for Manchester.

So over the next few months I shall be featuring some of her photographs, and for a while at least some will mirror a set of images I took in the 1970s.

And because if you come from south east London you never really get the Thames out of your system, here are the first two.

The collection also includes some of the Kent coast and of course Eltham where we grew up and where our Jillian still lives.

I chose these two to start the series because they reflect the changes of the River over the last few decades.

The Naval College and gasometer are still a reassuring features but the sky line has altered out of all recognition from when I worked down at the food factory by the Blackwall Tunnel.

Location; Greenwich









Pictures; the River, 2017 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

Revisiting County Street ...... Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 96

 This is County Street which is so unremarkable that it’s another of those narrow side streets not even worth a glance.

County Street, 2026

It is situated off Mount Street between Central Street and Lloyd Street, and goes nowhere.

It has none of the mysterious promise of other small side streets which might entice you in.

True it is narrow enough but it is also very short, ends in a dead end and has no twisty bits which make you wonder what is round the corner.

By 1900 it was just what you see now, although then it was called Chapel Street and ran into the back of the Memorial Hall and which is now a restaurant.

Go back just another fifty years and the street was indeed a more twisty stretch continuing all the way down to Coach Makers Entry which ran from Jackson’s Row to Lloyd Street.

And had you turned into it from Mount Street in 1851  it would have led to Brignall’s Dye Works and a Tannery before going off north and  east taking in any properties and passing the backs of another six buildings before exiting out on Coach Makers Entry, where for good measure there was the Coach Makers Arms.

The street in 1851

I can’t be sure when it was cut but it will date from after 1819, and indeed just fifteen years earlier this was just open land with a pond where the Albert Square Chop House now stands.

So it may not be much now but go back long enough and there was a lot more to that dead end, with plenty of stories just waiting to be uncovered.

Location, Manchester

Pictures; County Street, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the street in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

At the chippy on the green with Mrs Jones and "Chippy Madge"

Now I am always fascinated by those pictures which call up a rich seam of memories that cross the generations.

And this one pretty much does just that.  We are inside Chorlton Green Supper Bar sometime in the late 1960s courtesy of Bob Jones.

Just a few years later it would be one of my regular haunts and later still the chosen chippy of my lads.

And I will not be alone in remembering that tiny room with the tiled counter and steamed up windows with the bright lights and promise of something good to eat.

Even now nothing is quite like going into a chip shop on a cold winter’s evening.

It starts with that wall of heat and then the distinctive smell, along with the noise of the chips in the deep fryer and the rustle of paper.

And there is also the conversations which are a mix of the humorous, the mundane and usually a little of the village gossip.

Of course most of what is said might well be repeated over the counter of the newsagents and in the pub but waiting in line for your supper offers up plenty of time to listen to what is being said and an opportunity to add your own contribution.

Now I am old enough to remember getting your chips in newspaper and then walking home on dark nights with that double pleasure which came not only from eating the chips but from holding the bag which kept your hands warm.

So Bob’s picture is just that bit special, more so because on the right is his mum and on the left “Chippy Madge.”

All too often photographs like this one get lost over time and with it go a tiny but important record of how things were.

And it is the little often trivial things, like the name “Chippy Madge” and “Blind Bob the Barber”, which say something about the time and the place.

The nicknames were rarely meant to be cruel and were just one of those things that you said.

Madge worked in the chip shop and her name was Madge so “Chippy Madge” it was, and more often than not there would be a raft of such names for everyone from the milkman to the chap who came round to sharpen your knives.

I may not get out as often these days or visit as many places but I rather think such names are no longer as common and that is a shame.

Picture; Mrs Jones and “Chippy Madge” circa 1960s courtesy of Bob Jones, and the Chorlton Green Supper Bar 1978 from the collection of Tony Walker.

The Letter Box graveyeard and other posty stories

In The Woolwich Drill Hall circa 1965

Now one of the places I wish I had visited back in 1965 was the old Woolwich Drill Hall in the company of my friend Jean because there I would have seen a pretty impressive collection of old Victorian pillar boxes.

I suppose we take the pillar box like the telephone kiosk for granted and only really begin noticing them as they disappear from our streets.

And as you would expect here there is a rich and fascinating history, which is best told by Jean.

Victorian Letter Box

“In 1963 the Post Office began to replace all the single-aperture posting boxes in Central London with double-aperture ones.  

Concerned about the loss of so many Victorian examples, which were now being sold for their scrap metal value, I persuaded the manager of the SE London Postal District to send all those he recovered to the former Drill Hall in Woolwich, where I could try to identify the rarest examples and find them a Good Home.   

This he did, and I spent many Saturdays there in the task selecting boxes of all types for donation to a suitable museum. 

As I was in the early stages of researching the history of the many different kinds of Victorian letter boxes (which was to lead to my book The Letter Box, published in 1969), this gave me a unique opportunity to examine at close quarters and in one place the great variety in size and design. 

One of these recovered boxes was donated to The Eltham Society, which then (in 1965) had hopes of opening a small museum of local history in the Orangery. 

The first of many, 1952 Whitehall

Today, I am still looking after this 'Penfold' pillar box (named after its designer, J W Penfold, and dating from the 1860s) in my garden.

One of the replaced pillar boxes (of which all trace was sadly lost ) was England's first pillar box of the present Queen’s reign - erected in Whitehall, near the Horseguards' Parade in November 1952. 

Scotland's first pillar box of the present reign was unveiled at the Inch Housing Estate, Edinburgh, on 28 November. 

Within 36 hours it had been daubed with tar and, after a few more such incidents, it was blown-up by a home-made bomb.  Why?  

This was because it bore not only the legend Post Office and the crown of St Edward but also the E11R cypher, which was offensive to Scots as there had been no previous Scottish monarch of that name and, even worse, England's Elizabeth 1 was responsible for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scotland. 

A little bit of Scotland in Yorkshire

Early in 1953, the Secretary of State for Scotland proposed that future posting boxes and mail vans intended for use in Scotland should bear no cypher at all. 

His suggestion was taken up by the Post Office and, henceforth, these bore only the legend Post Office and the Scottish Crown. 

One of these Scottish post boxes was inadvertently sent to Keighley in Yorkshire- but this went unnoticed by the locals!

Many years later Royal Mail, in order to meet the demand for period letter boxes in special locations, commissioned facsimile 'Penfolds' for places such as Chislehurst in Kent.”

Story and research by Jean Gammons, November 2013

Source; The Letter Box – a history of Post Office Pillar and Wall boxes by Jean Young Farrugia-(Centaur Press 1969).  Further information can be obtained from the Letter Box Study Group www.lbsg.org

Pictures from the collection of Jean Gammons