A synagogue ......Mr. & Mrs. Solomon ....... and Manchester's Corporation Street

So long before the construction of motorways and airports wiped out some of our favourite buildings  there was Corporation Street. 

The synagogue on Halliwell Street, 1849

It runs from Cross Street and was cut in the late 1840s, and like all such major developments resulted in the demolition of buildings and the loss of smaller streets.

One of those buildings was the synagogue on Halliwell Street which had opened in 1825.

The inaugural stone had been laid the year before at a ceremony which had started with prayers at the “temporary place of worship on Long Millgate  …. [after which] the reader and congregation walked in procession to Halliwell Street to perform the laying of the first stone of the intended new synagogue when very appropriate and impressive prayers, composed for the occasion were said by the reader, after which thirty persons sat down, at the Wilton Arms to an excellent dinner”.*

Just over a year later in the September the Manchester Guardian reported on the consecration of the new synagogue which it wrote “is in every respect suitable for the performance of divine worship”. *****

It was according to one observer an unpretenious red brick building which replaced a temporary place of worship which had been in Ainsworth Court off Long Millgate.

Access to the Court was through a narrow passage.

Sadly the Manchester Guardian didn’t comment on its closure or demolition but did give a detailed account of the new synagogue on Park Street Cheetham Hill Road on March 25th 1858.**

Halliwell Street on which the early synagogue was built was swept away with the coming of Corporation Street, but the 1851 census provides us with a very clear picture of its inhabitants, including Soloman Philips who was the appointed overseer for the synagogue, along with a Miss Levy who described herself as a Professor of Hebrew.

In all there were seventy four residents living on the street, twenty-one of whom were children under the age of 14. The seventy four had  birth places which ranged from Manchester and Salford to Liverpool, Warsaw and Hamburg. 

Their occupations were varied but erred on the side of skilled artisan, including watchmaker and milliner to a professor of Music and a veterinary surgeon alongside the more humble jobs of launderess, matchmaker and traveller along with the delightful “Ender and Mender”.

Mr. Philips had come from Warsaw, and his wife Sarah from Koosemer in Poland  No pictures have survived of their home on Halliwell Street but it commanded an annual rent of £18  which translated into a weekly rent of six shillings which was above that of properties in the surrounding streets.

And it does appear that their house survived the destruction of the synagogue and part of the road it stood on because in 1861 Philip and Sarah are still here at number 9, which sometime during the decade before had been renumbered as no. 4.

Now that remanent is part of Balloon Street which has also been much truncated, but as Balloon Street it is a reminder of that 18th century pioneer of all things ballons.  

This was James Sadler who according to my Annals of Manchester "ascended in his balloon on May 12th 1785 from a garden behind the Manchester Arms Inn Long Millgate, which was then a private house”***. 

And not content with that seven days later “made his second balloon ascent, but on alighting was obliged to let it drive in the wind”.

Indigo Hotel, Todd Street, 2025

Leaving me just to say that there is a plaque commemorating the synagogue on the wall of the Indigo Hotel on Todd Street, close to where the synagogue stood. The text says, "Manchester's First Synagogue, 1825-1858 stood near this site until its demolition in the construction of Corporation Street".

Location; Shudehill

 Picture; the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Indigo Hotel, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Manchester Guardian, August 14th, 1824

** The Manchester Guardian, September 10th, 1825

***The Manchester Guardian, March 26th, 1858

****Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885

***** Davies, Ethan, Manchester's first synagogue recognised with plaque in special ceremony, Manchester Evening News, July 13th, 2022, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchesters-first-synagogue-recognised-plaque-24477558

A little bit of Manchester in Eltham Palace

Now I do miss Eltham, it was where I grew up and it is a place I was very happy.

But at the age of 19 I went north following a girlfriend who had started a course at Manchester Polytechnic, which on reflection was not the best way for me to choose a degree course especially as she left for London just three months later.

The Sentry, 2007

I stayed and the city has been my home ever since and I do think of it as home, but like all ex pats I have never forgotten Eltham and in particular Well Hall.

All of which made the discovery that one of the City’s war memorials was replicated in miniature and sits on a table in the study of Eltham Palace a source for thought.

I came across it recently while working on the new book.*

The original was commissioned by S & J Watts to commemorate those who worked for the company and died in the Great War.

The memorial was erected  in 1922 in the main entrance of the company’s building on Portland Street.

The Sentry is a bronze sculpture, which stands in an arched niche just inside the building and faces a marble plaque commemorating the dead.

It depicts the sentry standing on duty, and was commissioned from the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger who also designed the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, London.

Eltham Palace, 1961

And to my surprise and pleasure there is a small version of the figure in the study of Eltham Palace, where it was displayed by Stephen Courtauld, who like Mr Jagger was a member of the Artists' Rifles.

So there you have it a little bit of Manchester in the heart of Eltham.

But I can’t close without a reference to the building which holds the orginal statue.

This  is the  large, Victorian Grade II listed building known as Watts Warehouse.

It opened in 1856 as a textile warehouse for the wholesale drapery business of S & J Watts, and was the largest single-occupancy textile warehouse in Manchester.

Today the building is part of the Britannia Hotels chain.

Watts Warehouse, 1973

One source has referred to its ornate style as being typical of
“the extravagant confidence of many Mancunian warehouses of this period, but the Watts Warehouse is notable for its peculiarly eclectic design. Designed in the form of a Venetian palazzo, the building has five storeys, each decorated in a different style – Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan, French Renaissance and Flemish – and roof pavilions featuring large Gothic wheel windows.

The interior was similarly lavish in its decoration, with a sweeping iron cantilever staircase, balconied stairwell, and mahogany counters for displaying merchandise.”*

And that makes it a sort of palace.

Location, Manchester and Eltham in London

Pictures; the Sentry, Cnbrb, 2007 Wikipedia Commons, Eltham Palace, from Eltham Palace Ministry of Works Guide Book, 1961and the Watts Warehouse, 1973, m56859 , courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

** Watts Warehouse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Warehouse

101 Beech Road ….. one shop ….. and a heap of stories …….

Now, when Ian Collier posted this picture on social media  of his family outside 101 Beech Road I knew there was a story.

101 Beech Road

Today the premises is Beech Road Pharmacy but in 1901 it was home to Mrs Elizabeth Clayton and her five children. 

Mrs. Clayton described herself as a widow, and her children were variously employed as a “dressmaker”, “Blouse machinist”, and fishmongers.

And it is the 25 year old George Clayton who may well be the tall young man staring back at us with what may be his brother Arthur.

A decade later the census returns record only George, his brother William and sister Ethel in the property, with George describing himself as “Fishmonger” along with William who was a “Fishmonger, Salesman” and Ethel who had given up her job as “Blouse machinist” in return for running the family home.

Fruit, veg and Mr. Clayton

Ian tells me that “the shop was owned by George Clayton, my grandmother's second husband as her first husband, my grandfather was tragically killed by fire shortly after the birth of my father. 

The photo shows my great-grandmother, grandmother and father as a child. I am uncertain how long they stayed in Chorlton as they moved to Bacup after George Clayton died”.

The census record show that by 1921 no. 101 was occupied by Mr. & Mrs. Degman.  He was a hairdresser but gave his work address as 13 Lever Street in town and there is no hint as to who or what the shop was selling.

But in 1929 an Arthur Collier is listed as a greengrocer at the address.

That said Arthur Clayton now aged 44 had own green grocers at 119 Beech Road, which was still trading as such but under a different name thirty years later, and indeed had morphed into a wholesale food emporium in 1979.

Fresh To Day

Leaving aside the story of the Clayton family which I am sure Ian will be able to help piece together I am intrigued by the picture.

I am fairly convinced its dates from after 1903, because in that year a William Henry Bratby is listed as a Cycle agent, next door at 103, but six years later the shop is a drapery run by Mrs. Rosa Wagstaff and there does appear to be clothes in the window of the neighbouring  shop.

All of which just leaves me to reflect on the detail in the picture, from the sign advertising a range of fish, "Fresh Today" to the heap of fruit, veg and more fish on display both inside and outside the shop.

Location; Beech Road

119 Beech Road, 1979

Pictures, 101 Beech Road, circa 1901-1921, courtesy of Ian Collier, and 119 Beech Road, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Go east young professional and grow up with a town half as old as time

So yes, Go east young professional and grow up with a town half as old as time mangles an injunction often attributed to Horace Greeley about westward expansion and the Manifest Destiny of the United States with that poem about Petra in Jordan.*

Looking down on Hebden Bridge, 2026

Hebden Bridge from Nutclough Road, 2026

To which Eric of Todmorden will mutter "self-indulgent nonsense, and I guess he would be right".  

But all stories need an introduction and in a sense this one hits the button because for ages young professionals have been heading east from Manchester to this small community in West Yorkshire.

My Wikipedia tells me that “during the 1970s and 1980s the town saw an influx of artists, writers, photographers, musicians, alternative practitioners, teachers, Green and New Age activists and more recently, wealthier 'yuppie' types. 

The town centre, 2026

This in turn saw a boom in tourism to the area. During the 1990s Hebden Bridge became a commuter town, because of its proximity to major towns and cities both sides of the Pennines and its rail links to Manchester, Bradford and Leeds”**

I will leave residents to correct or agree with the description but that does seem to be the perspective of outsiders some of whom I count as friends.

That said having visited the place over the years I can see how it is an attractive place to settle down in despite the ever-rising house prices, risk of flooding and unpopular development plans.

Houses that climb the valley, 2026

But who wouldn’t be drawn to what the British Airways flight magazine in 2025 named as the fourth quirkiest place in the world and described as ‘modern and stylish in an unconventional and stylish way’".**

At which point I could launch into a full description of its old English origins, its rise to prominence during the Industrial Revolution and its place today as a cultural, and retail centre, but then I would only be lifting the account from other people’s research all of which is easily available.

So instead, I will content myself with these   paintings by my artist pal Peter Topping.

Crossing the water, 2026

He ventured east from Chorlton recently to reacquaint himself with the place and meet up with one of his sons who now lives there.

And that pretty much is it.

Location; Hebden Bridge

Paintings; Hebden Bridge, @ Peter Topping, 2026, https://paintingsfrompictures.co.uk/

*"Go West,  young man go West and grow up with the country” Horace Greeley, 1854 and “a rose red city half as old as time” John William Burgon, 1845

**Hebden Bridge, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebden_Bridge

Nutclough Road, 2026

A classic story of a rural world we have lost ….. Akenfield

Today I am going to revisit Akenfield by Ronald Blythe a favourite book which I first came across in the mid-1970s.

By then it had been on the bookshelves since 1969 and proved a best seller.

To quote the publisher’s description it is a “perceptive portrayal of English country life reverberates with the voices of the village inhabitants, from the reminiscences of survivors of the Great War evoking days gone by, to the concerns of a younger generation of farm-workers and the fascinating and personal recollections of, among others, the local schoolteacher, doctor, blacksmith, saddler, district nurse and magistrate. 

Providing insights into farming, education, welfare, class, religion and death, Akenfield forms a unique document of a way of life that has, in many ways, disappeared”.

And here is the confession, I only got part way through which was nothing to do with the quality of the book, the writing or the content, but simply because my social life was full, and work very busy.

The result was that it was put aside, first on the coffee table, then the to do read on the bookshelf and finally filed away.

Then during a clear out it went and now its back, or at least a new copy.

In the interim it was adapted into a film and later a play, neither of which I saw.

And perhaps I should stop at this point till I have read it but when I came to write my first book I drew on the format.

That book was The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy which was a study of a small rural community on the edge of Manchester during the first half of the 19th century.

And Mr. Blythe’s wish to record life in a small Suffolk village was the inspiration for my book.

I suspect his will be the better writing and he wrote from first hand experience while mine was a labour of research.

So while I can not claim to match his work I shall read it to learn about rural life in his community up to the end of the 1960s.

Picture; cover of Akenfield, Penguin Classics, £12.99

Lost and forgotten breweries of Manchester ......... nu 1 what a lot

It began as a discussion with Paul over the identity of this brewery on the corner of Ledger Street which was behind Miller Street. 

Ledger Street and that brewery. 1849

It shows up on both the 1849 OS map of Manchester and Salford and Mr Adshead’s  Twenty four Illustrated Maps of the Township of Manchester published two years later.

And as you do I went looking for it, staring with the 1850 street directory which along with listing most of the streets of Manchester & Salford, also includes the principal trades and householders.

Sadly the brewery on Ledger Street was not there but then nor was Ledger Street.

Some of our breweies, 1850

Instead I had to content myself with looking through the breweries which were in the directory, of which there were eight six.  Twenty two were in Salford and the rest were in Manchester.

To these could be added the very small enterprises which were no more than a family and a front room, who made their own beer and served it directly from their their home.

In time I am minded to go looking for all sixty four, finding out something about who they were and how long they survived.

I suspect some will have gone within a decade while others lasted into the following century and a few  will have survived until quite recently.

All of which brings me to  James Deakin’s brewery on Kenyon Street which was off Rochdale Road.

Now why I got Kenyon Street and Ledger Street mixed up I have no idea, but I did and for an hour roamed over the documents connected with Mr Deakin and there were a fair few.

He is there in the Rate Books in 1850 owning the “brewhouse” which had a rateable value of £33 which put his premises way above the neighbouring “workshops” but a minnow compared to the ironworks of John Rowcroft who paid £100.

Kenyon Street and Deakin's Brewey, 1850

That said Mr Deakin was doing well enough to live with his wife and son in Rusholme employing three servants.

A decade later they had moved to one of the posh bits of Ardwick living in a house which was big enough to accommodate their five children and three servants.

In time I will find out more about his business, but for now I uncovered a reference to the firm which “by the late 1880's the business was being run by James Henry Deakin, son of the brewer Henry Deakin. 

The title of the Manchester Brewery Company Limited was given to a newly-registered firm in 1888 when it was created to acquire the business of James Henry Deakin. The firm were based at the Britannia Brewery in Brodie Street, Ardwick, Manchester.”*

So that offers up a wealth of research opportunities and also opens up another line of enquiry because there was a George Deakin operating a brewery from 62 Butler Street just round the corner on Oldham Road.

None of which perhaps helps with finding our brewery on Ledger Street.

For that I suspect it will have to be a trawl of the Rates Books on a cold set day down at Central Ref.

Still someone has to do it.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; detail of Ledger Street 1849 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1844-49 and detail of Kenyon Street, 1851 from  Adshead’s map of 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Pubs and Breweries of the Midlands,  http://www.midlandspubs.co.uk/breweries/lancashire/manchester-brewery.htm

A lost Eltham Palace ........... nu 3 Eltham Palace from the north west

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Picture; Eltham Palace from the north west from an old engraving, 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

*The Story of Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-story-of-eltham-palace.html

** 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