Ours was a place dominated by working animals

Ours was a place  dominated by working animals.

For centuries the main draught animal had been the oxen and in some parts of the country their use continued well on till the end of the 19th century and the start of the twentieth.

But by the 1840s the horse had taken over in most areas.

The horse was a familiar sight here in the township.  As well as working the fields, they would have pulled the carts and wagons of the farmers and carriers as well as the coaches of the well to do.

Horses provided work for the blacksmith, and the farrier and indirectly for the wheelwright.  Then there were the men who worked with the horses.  Of these the ploughman and the carter earned more than most other farm workers.  The carter after all was assured a regular wage because horses needed to be looked after all the year round, unlike the farm labourer who could expect seasonal periods of unemployment.

But most farm workers came into some contact with horses at some point and on the smaller farms and market gardens, the job of caring and working with horses fell to the farmer or his son.

The Bailey family on the Row who farmed seven acres had just one horse which would have doubled for both ploughing and pulling the spring cart.  

This would have been the pattern here with so many of our market gardens operating with less than 10 acres of land.

On our bigger farms there were men who were employed specifically to deal with the horses.  James Higginbotham, farmer on the green employed a carter and at Dog House Farm just outside the township eight of the men who lived on this 380 acre farm were carters.

Here horses were worked in pairs and there might be two or three teams each with a carter and mate.  The most intensive period for a working horse were sowing wheat, or turnips, carting mangels and harvest time.

Many carters formed close bonds with their horses, a bond which was deepened by the long hours they spent together.  

A carter might start as early as five in the morning as the horses were prepared for work and last after the day had finished in the fields.

The horses had to be cleaned of the thick mud they had picked up and then fed, watered and groomed.

For this a carter might be paid just over £1 a week, although James Higginbotham was less generous.  During the mid 1840s he was paying his carters between 4s 6d [22p] and 6s [30p] a week.  But these wages reflected the fact that the men lived in and so received their food and lodging as part of their wages.

This supplement could make a difference of between 5s [25p] and 7s [35p] a week.   Even given this their wages seem much lower.

From THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Andrew Simpson, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy-new.html

Pictures; from the collections of Allan Brown, Carolyn Willitts  and the Lloyd collection

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 25 a busy day on Chapel Street

I suppose it is pretty much the case that Chapel Street has always been a busy spot.

I don’t have a date but there maybe a clue in the Union flag fluttering from the building and the crowds which seem to suggest that something has either happened or about to.

Location; Salford






Picture; Chapel Street, date unknown, m77251, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Another of those vanished scenes ........... the Thames and Tower Bridge

Now you will have to be the wrong side of 40 to be able to recall this scene.

The date on the card is 1936 but the scene with cargo ships discharging all manner of things from around the world was still pretty much the same two decades and bit later.

I remember crossing London Bridge as a youngster looking across to Tower Bridge with the wharves and cranes on the south side and the old fish market on the left.

Location; London

Picture; the River Thames and Tower Bridge, 1936 from the series London by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

This Is London ........ a unique guide to the London of 1959

Now I have no idea why I never got a copy of This Is London.*

Cover of This is London

I guess that there are only so many books that you can get for Christmas, and with the Eagle Annual and the odd history book that was enough.

Not that I think I would fully have appreciated it back then when I was only ten all of which is so different now.

It is a witty, informative guide to the London I knew as a child and is full of marvellous images in the style of the period and these alone take me back nearly sixty years.

But it is also the humour which shines through and marks it as something original.

It starts with a page of brown sludge with the occasional splash of yellow accompanied with “Well, this is London. 

 But don’t worry, it is hidden in fog like this only a few times a year in winter. Most of the time it looks- like this!”

And that is the start of a wonderful series of bright colourful and exciting paintings of London with a text to match.

All of which is a riveting read and one that has now become a history book in itself.

So much so that the new edition which was published in 2004** has updated some of the entries,  pointing out for instance that “Today the Billingsgate fish market is located in the Docklands, a rejuvenated section of the London Docks.  It moved there in 1982.”

Now that move passed me by and while I have no doubt it was for the best I have vivid memories of the market, the over powering smell and the debris left on the streets on a Saturday morning only hours after the traders and the fish had left for shops across the city.

Three million passengers are carried daily in Underground trains

It is just one of the moments which bounced out of the past along with those electric milk floats, old Routemasters and a river which was still a working river full of ships from every corner of the world unloading their cargoes under the shadows of tall cranes and massive warehouses.

All of which I remember and for those like my own lads who never knew that London, Mr Sasek’s book has it all.

And so as you would expect I have gone looking for other editions in the same series which included, Paris, Rome, New York, and San Francisco.

In time I might order up the reprints of New York, and San Francisco, but at present I am content to wait for the arrival of This is Rome which was originally published in 1960 and reprinted in 2007.

Like This is London it has an page of updates which will be fun to match with the original text and my own memories of a city we regularly return to.

Now ever one to respect copyright I held off posting and substitute the same story but with images drawn from the collection.

However after contacting the publisher it appears at present no one knows who owns the copyright to the illustrations, so as the blog is no commercial and this is about encouraging everyone to buy read and share the booksof Mr Miroslav I can't think anyone will object, but if they do I shall revert to the original.

And for those intrigued by the books there is a site dedicated to the author and his books.

Picture; cover from This Is London, and Underground train page 42 courtesy of Universe Publishing

*This Is London, Miroslav Sasek, 1959

**Universe Publishing, a Division of  Rizzoli International Publications, New York, www.rizzoliusa.com

***This is M Sasek, http://www.miroslavsasek.com/index.html

A day out on the meadows ..... circa 1910

The caption reads, “the footbridge over the stream at Brook Road entrance to the meadows. 

 From this bridge there was a diagonal path across Boat Meadow to Jackson’s footbridge which was part of the normal path from the green to the pub by the Mersey.” 

It is dated 1910.

The picture is a perfect reminder that the area was farmed as meadow land which involved regularly flooding the land from a series of irrigation ditches.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 58 ................. Booth Street

Now Booth Street is just what you would expect of one of those twisty little streets off Chapel Street which make their way down to the river.

Unless you have business down there I doubt that you would give Booth Street a second glance.

Today there are a few apartments along the stretch and that is pretty much it.
Back in 1850 the street directory lists just five addresses, starting with Mary Farren, shopkeeper at number 5, George Lord, mechanic at number 12, Daniel Gaskil who was an overlooker at 20 and John Blomeley next door who also an overlooker and finally the firm of James Aspinal Turner & Co, cotton spinners.

There were plenty more properties along with a closed court and a timber yard, but none of the residents of these were worthy or wealthy enough to get a mention in the directory.

Booth Street, 1849

Of course the turnover of occupants in this bit of Salford would have been high and indeed just a year earlier at the bottom of Booth Street there was the Eagle Roller and Spindle Works who likewise is missing from the 1850 list of businesses.

Still there were always the pubs.  On the corner of Booth and Chapel Street there was the Punch Bowl, while back down on Barlow Croft you could have ordered a pint at the Lord Nelson , while heading in the opposite direction there was the Royal Oak and finally starting on the corner of Blackfriars Street there was the Saddle Inn and the Crown.

Now I suspect that both Mr Gaskil and Blomeley who lived on the west side of the street could have worked at James Aspinal Turner’s but it is just speculation as is the notion that they may have been regulars in the Punch Bowl.

But armed with their names I shall in time go looking for them on the census returns  and that will also offer up the names and lives of some of the others who lived on Booth Street.

And that is all for today, but I shall be visiting  the streets on either side over the next few days.

Location; Salford 3

Picture; Booth Street from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Booth Street in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

A book called Alice …. a thunderstorm ….and the lazy buzz of visiting bees … the non-history story

August into September used to be known as the silly season when with Parliament in recess along with the law courts nothing much stirred leaving the media to fall back on trivia to sell newspapers and generate income from advertising.

Driven from the Rec ... hot days, 2026

It would be the time of “man bites dog”, “looking for the sea at Southport” and “spotting the first onion sellers from France”.

And despite that it is only June, and recent stories of earthquakes in Venezuela, wars in the Middle East and that unfolding speculation on who will be Britain’s next Prime Minister, here in Chorlton it all seems to be what the Americans would call a “slow news week”.

All of which I guess is down to the heat wave which has driven me into the coolest part of the house.  Shutters and curtain drawn, windows closed and the admission that the last time I went out was Monday.

It has however given me more time to reflect on smaller bits of history and to explore phrases like “Piffy on a rock bun”, “Black as New gate’s knocker”, and “looking like Reggie Page”. Some are very personal and arise from our own family while others have a wider context and some are rooted in historic events. *

And there are those which like me and my friends have used for decades and no doubt were picked up from our youth.  One such was when my friend Lois responding to the present heatwave describing the moment as “boiling” while many of us have and do say I am “starving”. 

Now neither can logically be true but they perfectly describe a moment.

Alice trying to play croquet with a flamingo, 1865

And that brings me back to one of my favourite bits from Through the Looking Glass where Humpty Dumpty remarks, “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less’”.

An absurd comment but one which chimes in perfectly with the utterances of some politicians and much of what is peddled on social media and is just “fake news”, although even the word fake news has been hijacked to rubbish what has been verified as accurate.

All that said there is nothing fake about the heat wave.

Inside our house it is currently 29° while outside its 32° but which pales when set against the 34° being suffered by one of my sisters in southeast London.

Alas the promised thunderstorms passed off with just three claps of thunder and the accompanying streaks of lightening at 5 this morning.

It was enough to get me up, water the garden and enjoy the lazy buzz of some friendly bees who were more active than I have been all day.

All of which is very unhistorical so I shall close with a review of the summers from the mid-1840s.

Back then we were still a rural community with most of our population deriving a living from the land or in associated trades. So, the weather was more than just a hot day to endure.  

Hot days looking for bees, 2026

My copy of “Agricultural Records” reports that 1842 and 1843 were “fine dry summers with a good harvest” while 1844 was “a year of drought with disastrous harvest", followed by a year when the summer was “cold with a fairly poor harvest”.***

Happily, 1847 and 1848 offered up mixed weather but the harvests were plentiful although the quality was low.

And anyone who has studied social unrest will know that a succession of poor harvests brings hardships to the poor and anxiety for the people of plenty, who well remembered that the bumper French harvest of 1787 gave way to two bad years and a revolution.

Location; where ever  it is hot

Pictures; Driven from The Rec, Beech Road, empty at midday, 2026, and hot days looking for bees, Royal Horticultural Gardens, Bridgewater from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Alice trying to play croquet with a flamingo, John Teninel, 1865, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol, 1865

*"'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

'The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

'The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all’”.

Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, 1871

**Piffy on a rock bun …………… and other travels with my past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/06/piffy-on-rock-bun-and-other-travels.html

***Agricultural Records, AD 220-1977, J.M. Stratton and Jack Houghton Brown, 1978