Mr Simpson's Dairy in Moss Side, giving us milk from 1855

Mr Simpson's milk bottle

Now I don’t have a date for the milk bottle and then there will be those that wonder why I should be interested in them anyway.

But they are a rare thing today.

Once upon a time when I was growing up milk came in a glass bottle delivered to your door along with the morning newspaper and was as regular as the postman.

And all of that has pretty much gone.*

Our post arrives sometime around dinner time, newspapers are increasingly arriving as an electronic download and milk comes in plastic containers which you buy from a supermarket.

Not that this is a lament for a lost age.  After all there was a time when you had to go and collect your mail, when newspapers were very expensive and milk came in big open containers and was given out to you in whatever jug, mug or bottle you had at home.

Nor was that all for the milk like as not came from the next street where there would be a small dairy, and step back to the early 19th century and you could have stumbled across the cows which were a feature of all of our towns and cities.

For in an age before the train took the strain transporting large quantities of milk was just not practical.

So with that in mind back to my milk bottle which comes from the collection of Ann Love.

I am sure she sent me the picture because of the name, and not to be out done I went looking for Simpson’s Dairy which was established in 1855.

23 Denton Street, shown in red

And I found it where I expected to, at 23 Denton Street which ran from Upper Moss Lane to Chorlton Road.

James Simpson was doing his milk business from here in 1911 and with a bit of research I should  be able to track the family firm back to 1853 and onwards into the 20th century.

Of course Denton Street has long gone, swept away in the clearances of the 1960s and 70s, but Mackworth street is still there although it has been re-orientated so that it faces east west and not north south.

And as I was writing this piece, Ann told me that she discovered “that Mr and Mrs Simpson bought the house next door at some point, so owned 21 and 23 Denton St. 

They stabled their horses at Brougham Grove, a cul de sac just before Moss Lane, opposite Bentley St, on the left. 

They got their milk (After originally having a few cows) from Batemans Farm at Styal, and changed horses at the Jolly Carter Pub on Royle Green Road”

But like so much of the stories Ann hands to me there are connections.  Her family were related to the Griffiths who still run the builder’s business on Chorlton Road and Mr Simpson’s dairy was but a few minutes away from the cinema that another of her family  ran.

All of which continues to reassure me that history is a messy thing and one that takes you ever off in all sorts of directions.

Pictures;  milk bottle from the collection of Ann Love and detail of Denton Street in 1894 from the OS of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Memories of when the milk arrived by horse, of dye cast toys and much more, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/memories-of-when-milk-arrived-by-horse.html