Ki-ora, a choc ice and Bambi ...... the lost picture houses of Plumstead no 1

Now a while ago I set down a challenge to find some of our lost cinemas, and quick as a flash Tricia came back with a first and the promise to find more.

So here is what she said and what I know about the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street.

The Cinematographe

“That sort of challenge is right up my street Andrew. 

I will dig out my many maps of Plumstead & Woolwich & find one for 1913. The first time I ever went to the pictures was at the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street although it was called the Plaza in the 1950's. 

I saw Bambi, I still remember sitting there sobbing when his mummy died. 

The Plaza was more or less where Iceland is now. It had one screen & seated 528 people. The second time 

And just before i it was demolished in 2012

I went to the pictures was to see Tom Thumb at the Century Cinema which although was classed as being on Plumstead High Street it was set back and  I think the entrance was in Garibaldi Street. 

That was a larger cinema than the Plaza although it still only had one screen and seated 913. 

It closed in 1960 after which the building was many things, in 2012 it was demolished & is now flats. The images are of the Century the second image after it closed but before it was demolished.”

And that I think has set me off on a new series, Lost cinemas of Plumstead, which might well become Lost cinemas of south east London.**

Location; Plumstead

Pictures; from the collection of Tricia Lesley

*Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/off-to-flicks-in-winter-of-1913-and.html

**Lost cinemas of Plumstead, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20Plumsted 
Lost cinemas of south east London. https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20south%20east%20London

The day I thought I was in the country …… urban tales from Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Now, the purist will immediately point out I was not in Chorlton nor the countryside.

But on a hot summer’s day sometime at the end of the 1970s I rather thought I was.

I had taken myself off across the meadows and discovered the old weir at that bend in the Mersey.

The weir had been built in the 18th century to break the force of a flood surge which might have damaged the aqueduct carrying the Duke’s Canal.

The river regularly flooded in earlier centuries and once in the 1840s the force of that surge was so strong it damaged the weir itself.

Even now the base of the weir can still be marshy and after a wet winter the water will stretch out into the surrounding land.

On the day I discovered the spot there was just a hint of water but enough for the cows who grazed on the grass.

And it was the cows, the pasture and the steeple that offered up the illusion of somewhere rural.

Although I did have to frame the picture to miss the tower block and get the chapel of Stretford Cemetery in the centre.*

And before any one sneers, .... yes the quality of the pictures was poor.  In my defence I was just beginning to develop and print images using smelly photography and the negatives have sat in our cellar for over 40 years.

Location; the meadows west of the Mersey, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Stretford Cemetery, https://www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/births-deaths-and-marriages/burials-and-cremations/cemeteries-and-crematoria-in-Trafford/stretford-cemetery.aspx

In St Peter's Square on an August Sunday in 1937, reflecting on what was and what was to come

We are in St Peter’s Square on a Sunday.  

Now I can be certain of that because the picture is dated August 8th 1937 which was a Sunday.

And like many of the pictures in the collection there is much that you can peel back from what on the surface is just a photograph of a tram.

So starting with the obvious this is car 575 on its way to Burton Road and in the absence of a crew and passengers appears parked up.

Behind it is one of those buildings which were everywhere in the city centre, a mix of offices and shops, fronted in stone which had over half a century become grey and grimy, but with some nice arched windows on the upper storeys.

It was a solid sound building, most of which is out of view or hidden by the trams. But we can just glimpse the premises of Isaac’s Wallpapers who were at number 8.

They were an enterprising business and were quick to take advantage of the the coronation of King George V1 which had taken place in the May of that year, and so just four months after the event they were advertising as a “Coronation Offer Pure Oil Paint at 1/11d.”

David Isaacs had been trading from the shop since 1911 and I rather think there is a story here, as there will be in following up the entry from the directories for the Association Football Players Union which was at number 14 and whose secretary was Alfred S Owen.

The building has gone now, although I do remember standing on the steps of Central Ref gazing over at it on Saturday mornings as I took a break from some dusty article on the Anti Corn Law League.

By then it was a drab tired looking sort of place ready for its end waiting only to be replaced by something new and exciting.

This was to be Elisabeth House all glass and concrete walls which seem to have had few friends.  A building so misunderstood and disliked that no one can quite agree on when it went up.

Various sources suggest a date in the 1960s which does not quite fit with my memories of gazing across at it in 1970.

But recollections of events, places and buildings can so easily be wrong and I was prepared to accept that this was just one of those times when I was mistaken.

But not so. According to A Manchester View run by David Boardman,* Elisabeth House was built in 1971, which I am pleased to say means that my long term memory is fine, even if I can forget to put the wash on, turn off the lights.

I do have to say I am becoming a fan of his site offering as it does some interesting walks around buildings that have now vanished, and he has done an excellent job on chronicling the rise and demise of Elisabeth House which it is true had by the turn of this century become as tired looking as its predecessor and  it has to be said in perhaps half the time.

Now I do not have the same hard opinion of Elisabeth House as some but I will let you decide, for here is a 1924 picture of the old building taken from the Midland.

By the end it had become a sad sight, abandoned by both the Pancake and Italian restaurants and by the camera shop I occasionally visited.

One of its last episodes was to be used by a television crime series, and I rather envied the cast their view across the square to the Town Hall Extension.

All of which was a long way into the future on that August day in 1937.

But had I been there in the Square I would have felt at home on the steps of the Ref which was opened in 1934 and no doubt would have admired the Town Hall Extension which was almost finished and would be ready for its municipal staff and the public the following year.

Now us historians are always looking for continuity in the events of the past and so it is nice to reflect that just over forty years after the old majestic trams of Manchester Corporation vanished from our streets, they are back.

And that large white insurance building has also vanished although it survived until quite recently.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; St Peter’s Square in 1937 from the collection of Alan Brown, Elisabeth House, 1988,m04395,the premises of David Isaacs from the Midland Hotel, July 1924, City Engineers Department m04465 and the Town Hall Extension February 1937, m74925, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council
*http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour6/area6page61.html

The Milk Maid …. a train station ….. and the place that changed its name and changed it back again ….. Manchester stories ….

There are plenty of ways of telling the story of Greater Manchester’s history but no one has done it by using the tram network, and yet with eight tram routes and 99 stops it is the perfect way to do so.

The Milk Maid, from 1906

Each route and each stop have a heap of stories so find those stories, add a few more from the surrounding areas and very quickly they will by instalment build into a rich account of how we lived set against the big and small events.

Small events like visiting the Milk Maid bar in Piccadilly Plaza in the 1970s and gazing out at the historic Gardens which was once the site of a hospital and before that a place of punishment.  Or taking the tram to New Islington via a railway station and discovering its textile and canal past while pondering on how it changed its name and changed it back again.

All of which and more are contained in our new book, Piccadilly Gardens to New Islington.

It is the fourth in the series, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram and includes memorials, the old BBC building, with a look at the new Mayfield Gardens and that nightmare for motorists which is Stoney Brew.*

There is the big stuff like the Manchester Blitz, but also stories about the Doll’s Hospital and Sundays on a deckchair in Piccadilly Gardens.

And having read book four you can collect the first three, which take you on a journey out of south Manchester, into the city centre and on to Victoria Railway Station.  

In between there will be stops in rural Chorlton, industrial Cornbrook, the elegant St Peter's Square and those bold new civic enterprises from Manchester Town Hall to Exchange Square.

The books are available at £4.99 from Chorlton Bookshop, the shop at Central Ref, St Peter's Square, or from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New Islington

Pictures;  Out of Manchester Piccadilly, bound for Vrewe, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about

Out of Manchester Piccadilly bound for Crewe, 1979

*A new book on the History Of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram

Just 47 years ago in the village churchyard

Our parish churchyard in the April of 1978

It is just 47 years since this picture of our old parish church yard was taken.

And yet it is so far from the knowledge or experience of many in Chorlton that it might as well have been taken in 1878 rather than 1978.

And it is one of those odd things that despite having frequently walked past the crowded jumble of grave stones I have no recollection of the place looking like this.

Nor of the attack on the gravestone of Police Constable Cock who was murdered on August 1st 1876.  According to the local newspaper* “ the small headstone on the already battered, iron-railed grave in the old St Clements’s churchyard near Chorlton village green has been torn from its retaining screws by vandals or thieves attracted by the historic tablet.”

P.C.Cock's headstone, Preston, 1980

The original six foot high headstone which included the old Lancashire Constabulary crest was moved to Preston in 1956.

Now the murder is fairly well known and still crops up from time to time in stories of Chorlton.

At the time the understandable wish to get a quick conviction led to the arrest of William Hebron who was found guilty in the December but the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Which was all to the good given that just over two years later Charles Pearce who had a history of petty theft confessed to the murder of the policeman.

Looking back at the picture I continue to be surprised at the state of the place.  Leaving aside the vandalised graves you have to admit that it’s more than a little neglected.

Some of the headstones have been lift to tilt and those on the ground are uneven.

This is all the more shocking when back in 1847 an official inspection reported that the church and the graveyard along with the headstones were well kept and the grass mown regularly.

But this had been when there was still a church here and when people made their way down from the north entrance to worship in a church which dated back 149 years.

It had been built in 1800 on the site of an earlier chapel, survived the opening of a rival church on the corner of St Clements and Edge Lane and only closed in 1941 when frost damage made it almost impossible to hold services there.

Overturned headstone, April 1978

After that it lasted just another eight years succumbing to persistent attacks by vandals and was eventually demolished.

Not long after our picture was taken Angus Bateman and a team of people undertook two archaeological digs of the site and a little later the area was landscaped.

Now I remain ambivalent about that.  Certainly something needed to be done, and it is now a nice place to sit, but many of the gravestones were taken away and lost and the few that remain were not all returned to their original resting place.

And so the memorial stone to P.C.Cock is now situated close to the lytch gate which is some distance from where he was buried.

Does it matter?  Well yes I think it does.  Not only are the surviving headstones in the wrong places but the actual records of so many of the people who were born worked and died in the township are lost forever.

Their names and the often poignant inscriptions are no longer there to read and so it is almost as if they never were.

Looking north in 1978

Now I am not religious but I do think such memorials are important.  As historian I know they are, as indeed they are for anyone who has links with Chorlton.

And to underline that thought recently I met a descendant of the Reverend Booth who presided over services in the parish church for thirty-three years.  She was thrilled that his headstone had survived and paid for its restoration.  To her it was a very tangible link to her past family.

Nor is that quite the end.  For the gentleman in the picture is Mr Fred Casson who was verger of the church from 1930 till it closed in 1941.

He knew the church when it was still a lively and important part of the community and reflected on the struggle to maintain graveyard.  “Manchester City Council now look after the graveyard. They do a lot of repair work but every time workmen finish one job vandals smash something else.  It’s a losing battle.”

Looking north in 2009

Today by and large the place is vandal free and it is pleasant place but I rather think I would like it as it was, even if it meant coming down and helping make good from time to time.

And there I shall leave it.

Picture; from The Journal Thursday April 13, 1978, the Loyd collection and the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Vandals wreck memorial to famous murder, The Journal Thursday April 13, 1978

Taking the curve into Shude Hill ………….

Now I am a fan of our tram network, and I never tire of watching them move across the city at a stately pace, taking the curves and twists bequeathed by our old road network.

Taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022

All of which says much for the skill of the Metro engineers who managed to plot routes using those roads some of which date back into the late 18th century.

And one of my favourite spots is Balloon Street where trams effortlessly take the bendy way up from Corporation Street crossing Dantzic Street before sliding into the Shude Hill stop.

Before the tram Balloon Street was just a cut through up from Victoria Station which I sometimes also used to visit the Co-op archives.

But now the route is closed to traffic and is exclusively given over to the trams which emerge from the canyon like street flanked by tall buildings with a bit of grace.

Location; Manchester

Picture; taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That first cinema at the top of Eltham High Street

This is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

Eltham Cinema, circa 1913

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

I can’t be sure but I am guessing it survived as a Picture House until the big plush cinemas further down the High Street, and in Well Hall offered a bigger and comfortable experience.

And until now that was about all I knew, but yesterday I came across The Kinematograph Year Book, Program, Diary and Directory 1914, which is packed with everything from a list of all the cinemas in 1914 with information about this new and exciting form of entertainment along with lots of adverts.

Advert

And from the book I now know that its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.  A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.  He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

In time we will learn more and perhaps also a bit more about the cinema which sadly had no listing for the number of people it could seat.

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and advert from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914, page 43

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/