Your Arts Festival wants you ……

To be more accurate you will want to be part of this year’s Chorlton Arts Festival.

It runs from May 8 to May 21st encompasses all the arts and is live across Chorlton in our church’s, bars, cafes, pubs, and community venues.

And because it is so good the team were out today in Chorlton, handing out programmes, and talking to people.

Added to which there was live music from local bands.

All very good on a day when the sun shone.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  out with  Chorlton Arts Festival, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Arts Festival https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

**Chorlton Arts Festival stories, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Arts%20Festival

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 6 Bootle Alley

Now you could be forgiven for missing Bootle Alley which was always a very poor second to Bootle Street which twists up from Deansgate to Mount Street directly opposite the back of Central Ref. 

Onward Buildings,  with the alley just to the north, 2014

Its main claim to fame is that it is home to the pub, Sir Ralph Abercromby and of course a police station.

Walk along it today and you will be plunged into one of those narrow thoroughfares which with just a little bit of imagination takes you back to the early 19th century.

And once running parallel was Bottle Alley which gave access to the dark and dismal courts of Munday Square and Royle’s Court which between the two accounted for nineteen back to back cottages.

Its northern side faced onto the old Quaker Burial ground and its southern side was occupied by nine properties one of which gave access to a closed court which didn’t even merit a name.

And for those emboldened by an evening in the Sir Ralp Abercromby there is just a hint of that long vanished alley in the space between 201 Deansgate and the neighbouring restaurant.  It advances no more than a few paces before an iron gate bars the way.

Bootle Alley, 1849

So insignificant is the alley today that I have never got round to taking its picture.

Which means you will have to be content with a picture of the southern end of Onward Buildings which is the bit at the corner with Bootle Street.

Looking at the maps the lane still existed in 1900, although by then the courts had vanished.

On the burial plot stood the warehouse and offices of Leech Brothers and Manchester Corporation’s Joiner’s Shops, while directly opposite all those buildings running from the alley to Bootle Street had been cleared in preparation for Onward Buildings.

And now it is being transformed again with those huge developments.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Onward Buildings 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and detail of Bootle Alley, 1849 from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

When we had a post office on Beech Road

Now I am never surprised at what turns up on eBay, especially when my old friend David Harrop is involved.

At Beech Road post office, 1914

So here with a little bit of our postal history is a reminder that once we had a post office on Beech Road.

During the 19^th century it moved around a bit but by the end of that century was at number 109 Beech Road.

And on October 17 1914 one parcel passed through the post office.

Post woman, circa 1916

I would love to know where it was going and for that matter that was to receive it, but all we have is this section of the parcel.

In time I will check out who the sub-post master was on that day, but I think it could have been Mr Robert Chorley who was doing the business of selling stamps and all things posty three years earlier in 1911. 

The shop was also a stationers and this was clearly the primary business as on both the census for 1911 and the in the street directory he describes himself as a “Stationer and Sub-Post Master” and he was no doubt helped by his wife, Hannah Elizabeth. 

The couple had been married for eight years and had taken over the post office sometime after 1901.

And that is about it for now.

Location Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; parcel post markings, 1914, and post woman, circa 1916, courtesy of David Harrop

Walking into Eltham in 1862

The parish church in 1860

 I am back with Bradshaw in 1862  continuing  to explore one of the walks laid out in the Illustrated Handbook to London and its Environs.*

The book remains a wonderful snap shot of London in the early 1860s and for the curious 21st century reader here are descriptions on how to cross the city by foot, train and boat as well as what was on offer to the tourist of the period.

“For those who either have seen Woolwich, or prefer postponing their visit thither for a distant excursion, we can especially recommend a deviation from Shooter’s Hill down the inviting green lane that leads to ELTHAM, a pleasant walk of hardly two miles.”

And as you would expect the guide goes into great detail about the Palace, its history and its appearance in 1862 all of which I shall leave you to read yourself.

Partly because the guide does it so well and the publishers may jib at me stealing their book.

Suffice to say it makes fascinating reading and is a good contrast to what can be seen today added to which
I am sure there will be those who fall on the description and speculation about the ancient tunnels.

But for me I shall close with Bradshaw’s instruction to

“go and see Eltham Church; not that it is architecturally remarkable, but in the churchyard will be found a tomb to Doggett the comedian, who bequeathed the coat and badge still rowed for every 1st of August by the ‘jolly young watermen of the Thames.”

One he missed, Well Hall from a photograph taken in 1909

Now this is not as daft as it seems given that this was the old church and vanished not that long after the guide book was finished.

Now I do have to confess to a little disappointment in that this is all we get.

The fine large houses along the High Street and beyond do not get a look in, nor does that fine old pile at Well Hall which had been built in the early 18th century and would last into the 20th.

So having done the Palace and the parish Church our guide was content to announce that it was now time to “get back to Greenwich and go home by railway,” which does however open up the prospect of more walks courtesy of the guide to Woolwich Greenwich and Blackheath.

But these are for another time.

Pictures;  Eltham Church, 1860, & Well Hall 1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham,  R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm,

* Bradshaw’s Illustrated Handbook to London and its Environs, 1861, republished in 2012 by Conway 

Waiting on platform 12 at Piccadilly for Royal Mail Parcels ........ 1980

I know I shouldn’t be surprised at just how much of the city has changed over forty years.

Part of that is because I just don’t think four decades have whizzed past.

But then that has encompassed nine General Elections, a brace of American Presidents, the birth of our four children and my gentle passage from a man in gainful employment to one who writes and blogs.

Still I was drawn up with a jolt when I uncovered this picture of platforms, 10, 11 and 12 at Piccadilly Station.

So much so that for a brief while I was puzzled as to which station I had been on.

Logic and the other images in the strip of negatives all pointed to Piccadilly, but the scene is worlds away from that moving staircase, brightly painted columns and air of commuter bustle of today.

I even consulted that old railway buff David Harrop, and he confirmed I was where I thought, on Piccadilly Railway Station a full thirty years before its makeover.

So that pretty much is that.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station,1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Eltham Church ......”one towards your collection”

Now, I don’t for one minute think that when Lizzie sent this picture postcard to her auntie in Bridlington, that she ever thought it would reappear in Eltham a full century and a bit later.

And I am please it has courtesy of Tricia Leslie, because it offers up some interesting detail.

To the right, directly opposite the church is the wall of the Congregational Church which was later demolished to build Burton’s which is now McDonald’s.

The half timbered gateway is there but the space beyond, heading north down Well Hall Road, has yet to get the tram huts and has a second wooden gate and iron fence where today the stone seat and low wall with the word Eltham have been placed.

Add to this, that Well Hall Road looks narrower and was itself just under two years old, having been cut at this point as far as the railway bridge in 1905.

That said there is a lot that does look familiar, even though today the novelty of a camera has worn off leaving people unlikely to pose for a photographer.

Location; Eltham Church

Picture; Eltham Church,1907, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Historians of Chorlton ............. Nora Templar

Nora Templar was a well known historian.

 She wrote a series of articles about the township which were published in the St Clements parish magazine during the 1960s.

She had been born in 1910 and spent most of her life at Dog House Farm in what is now Whalley Range. Dog House was over 300 years old when Nora moved there in 1910 and was only demolished in 1960. Her father Herbert was a talented artist and some of his paintings are in the City’s collection.

It was from Dog House that Mary Moore set out in 1838 to sell farm produce at the Manchester markets only to be murdered on her way home. Nora remembered the “large barn and coach house which was sheltered from the north and east winds” and the “cobbled yard, pump and trough close to the kitchen and the well” all of which would have been familiar to Mary Moore.

As well as writing about the history of the township she witnessed some of the key events during the 20th century, including the Royal Agricultural Show held at Hough End fields in 1916, the Royal Lancashire Shows of 1924 and 1937, and the first aircraft to land at Hough End.

Pictures; Harvest Festival October 1981, Nora Templar from the Lloyd collection and an extract from Chorlton-cum-Hardy At Work and Play, St Clements Parish Magazine, November 1961