Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 43 ..... the three that became two

Now anyone who knows the Salisbury will have passed James Leigh Street and its companion Cayley Street.

James Leigh Street, 2016

And I guess shed loads of commuters will pass by the two on their way up the stairs to Oxford Road Station but probably don’t give either street a second glance.

And that is a shame.

They are best approached by dropping down the slope from Oxford Road into the hollow where the Salisbury stands.

In total there were three of these narrow streets consisting of James Leigh Street, Cayley Street and Mary Street, which took in 28 small back to back properties.

And while the back to backs have long gone, the names of the people who built the houses are still there. So James Leigh, and perhaps his wife or daughter Mary left their mark as did Mr William and Mr Frank just round the corner in the streets they built.

The three streets in 1849

Usually when a name like James Leigh or Frank turn up as a street name there is more than a chance that they had a hand in either cutting the road or theirs were the properties that fronted it.

So as you do I went looking for Mr James Leigh in the Manchester Rate books and came up with a lot.

Now I can be fairly certain that the three roads post date 1819 and were there by 1849, but even so that 30 years yields up a fair few property owners called Leigh, so it will be a tedious process of elimination.

But it’s a start.

Of the three only James Leigh still exists as a place you can visit.  Cayley Street is now hidden behind a stout brown gate and Mary Street has vanished altogether.

So I shall finish with a look at the Salisbury which was originally the Tulloghgorum Tavern, a name it retained till 1895 when it became the Salisbury.

The origin of its name is obscure but there is a Scottish poem and Highland reel with the same name, and I am reliably informed that in Gaelic the word is variously spelled - Tullochgorm, Tulloch Gorm, Tulloch Gorum, Tulach Gorm. Tulach or tulloch and means a hill, hillock, knoll while Gorm is Gaelic for blue, green, or blue-green, so the meaning of the two words could be translated "blue-green hills."

All of which is way beyond me, although it is worth noting that the name of the Lass O’ Gowrie just across Oxford Street also has a Scottish connection.

I had for a while wondered about the a possible connection to Little Ireland which was just round the corner but if I have read Johnson’s map of 1819 the pub may already have been there before the that slum was aid out.

Cayley Street, 2016

Of course the license records might help but in the meantime I shall just say with certainty that the change of name is linked to the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury who formed a government in 1895.

By then most of the mean little streets had gone, cleared away by the railway company, and industry.

But it is still possible to get a sense of what it might have been like a century and a half ago.

Dop down from Oxford Street into that hollow and then as now the place is dominated by the tall railway viaduct and two of those narrow streets.

And while the back to backs have long gone, and Little Ireland is just a page in a history book at least the names of the people who built the houses are still there.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; James Leigh Street and Cayley Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the surrounding area in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

A bit of the “other side” of London life in 1851 ................. stories from Henry Mayhew

"Of the thousand millions of human beings that are said to constitute  the population of the entire globe, there are – socially, morally, and perhaps even physically considered – two distinct and broadly marked races  viz., the wanders and the settlers-the vagabonds and the citizen – the nomadic and the civilized tribes.”*

Detail of a Costermonger

And with that Henry Mayhew plunges you in to the London of 1851.

The original accounts appeared first as articles in the London daily press, were then published under the title London Labour & the London Poor in 1851.

And just over a century later my edition of Mayhew’s London was issued, bought by mum and long ago passed to me.

Here are descriptions of what he called the “Street Folk” ranging from the “life of a Coster-lad," "the Dredgers or “River Finders” and the “Bird Catchers.”

Along the way there are detailed descriptions of the area like the London Street Markets, the language of the Coster mongers and much else.

So armed with Mr Mayhew’s guide I would happily have been able to know that “Flatch” was a halfpenny “Cool the esclop” meant “Look at the police” and if I was told the beer house was “Kenneteeno” it would have been stinking while the chap in the corner who was “Flach Kanurd” would have been drunk.

The Kitchen Fox Court Gray's Inn-Lane

What makes the book just that bit more fascinating is that it came out in the year 1851 which means that it is possible to crawl over the detailed census records matching his descriptions with the streets, courts and “dark places” that made up this bit of London.

If I am honest I have neglected Mr Mayhew over the years, spending my time on the equally unforgiving streets of Little Ireland, Deansgate and Angel Meadow in Manchester.

But with long summer days ahead, I rather think I shall leave the computer and sit in the garden with this slice of mid 19th century life form the city where I was born.

That said my edition according to the editors “has been designed for the convenience of the general reading public [and much] interesting material including all the longer passages has been sacrificed.”  
And that has meant the “contents of the entire fourth volume on prostitutes, thieves, swindlers and beggars have been omitted in entirety.”

Ah well you can’t have everything. Although just last week that has been sorted as our Saul has got me the full edition.

Location, London 1851

Pictures; the Kitchen Fox Court Gray’s-Inn- Lane and the London Costermonger, from London Labour & the London Poor 1851

*Henry Mayhew, Introduction, London Labour & the London Poor 1851,

Gaze upon this tarry thing ... all you in Chorlton who want to be nostalgic

Now I am never one to stop a good story, and remain fully aware that out there, some remain nostalgic about stone setts which were once a common form of road surface.

The Beech Road sett, late 19th century

So here is one of mine. I cannot now reveal how I came to acquire it, suffice to say that once a very long time ago when Beech Road was going through an earlier tar experience, this one was about to be thrown away.

I asked if I could have it as a relic of that old Chorlton and I was given two.

It will date from I suppose the late 19th century but maybe from the 1900s.

I just don’t know.

Of course some will know and there will a minute either in the records of the old Withington UDC or Manchester Corporation, but I am not going to look.

It sits in a special place beside two handmade bricks, one dating from the late 18th century which was part of a one up one down back to back house on Miller Street and the other from that grand property which once stood on Beech Road beside Acres Road which some will still call Acres Crack.

Longford Road, circa 1900

I have to admit that the old tin potty also from Miller Street was refused entry by the family, which I suspect was for the best.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; a Chorlton stone sett from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Longford Road circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 32 ............... Smithy Lane

Now until last week I had never explored Smithy Lane.

It is pretty easy to miss added to which it is not the most inviting of places.

But if you do wander down, it takes you to Garden Lane which is even narrower but widens out before joining St Mary’s Passage and also offers another diversion which is Dunlop Street which connects with Back South Parade.

And for those who leave the big NCP Car park these last two streets will be familiar enough.

Today the collection are pretty dismal bunch and I doubt that they were much better a century and a bit ago.

Back then Dunlop Street was called Greek Street and Garden Lane extended down as far as South Gate and at its eastern end took a sharp right past the Gas Works before joining Albert Street.

Once the gas works had gone the site became a Police Station for A Division.  The cells faced out on to Albert Street leaving only the tiny Gas Street on its eastern side as a reminder to what had once been.

I often wonder if any of those locked up for the night wandered over to the Turkish Baths on the corner of Albert Street and Back South Parade or fastened on a pint in the pub opposite.

But that and a few more tales of Smithy Lane or for another time.

Location; Manchester

Picture;; Smithy Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Of floods and weirs and peaceful places, on the edge of Turn Moss

The weir in 1915

I really don’t do enough pictures on the blog and rarely do those then and now sort of stories.  So here with the help of Nigel Anderson and Michael J Thompson of Hardy Productions UK* are some shots of the weir on the edge of Turn Moss just where the river takes one of its dramatic twists.

Now the Mersey is prone to flooding and after a particularly bad flood in 1799 the weir was built to channel storm water across the plain and into the Kickety Brook and so lessening the danger to the aqueduct which carried the Duke’s Canal.

And floods and the story of floods regularly pop up on the blog including the tale of the weir and Kickety Brook,.

Almost the same spot today © Nigel Anderson

So when Michael told me that he and Nigel had been down at the weir I just had to ask permission to use their photographs, along with two from 1915 which was the last time it served the purpose it was built for.


Their pictures show a benign spot, but it was not always so.

The river could flood with little warning and on one occasion a farmer just had time to release his horses from the cart as the water swept across the open land.

The weir from the flood plain, 1915

Another time in the July of 1828 flood water transported hay ricks from the farm behind Barlow Hall down to Stretford only later to take them back, while later floods proved to be even more destructive with one destroying the bridge across Chorlton Brook.

It was, wrote Thomas Ellwood the local historian
“no uncommon thing to see the great level of green fields completely covered with water presenting the appearance of a large lake , several miles in circuit,” and he recorded six major floods between  December 1880 and October  1881.

Looking towards Kickety Brook from the weir © Michael J Thompson

Not that it always worked.  Soon after it had been built flood water swept it away and during the nineteenth century neither the weir nor the river banks prevented the Mersey bursting out across the plain.

This happened in 1840 and in the following year it was rebuilt by the engineer William Cubitt.

After litigation the cost of repair was borne by the Bridgewater Trust who paid out £1,500, the Turnpike Commissioners £500, Thomas de Trafford £1,000 and Wilbraham Egerton £1,000.

*Hardy Productions UK https://sites.google.com/site/hardyprodsuk/

Pictures; of the weir in 1915 from the Lloyd collection and the weir today courtesy of Nigel Anderson and Michael J Thompson

Looking at the Well Hall we have lost, Nell Gwynne's Cottages, 1908

Now I never tire of writing about Well Hall and in particular during the mid 19th century.

This will always be one of those fascinating times for me when many of our small rural communities were about to be transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

In the township of Chorlton where I live the economy had depended on supplying food for the growing giant of Manchester just four miles away but by the end of the 19th century the city had all but claimed the place.

From the 1880s much of the farm land to the north of the village was turned into houses and in 1904 we voted to join the city.

Well Hall held out longer but not by much, and so this photograph of the cottages just north of the Pleasaunce is a reminder of what we have lost.

I have written about them in the past and today want to do no more than feature this image of them.*

It has been taken from Eltham Through Time by Kristina Bedford.**

I have seen other images of the cottages but never one on colour which makes it a fascinating one.
Of course they never were Nell Gywnne's but there will be those who still like to think so.

Picture; Nell Gywnne’s Cottages, Well Hall 1908, from Eltham Through Time

*From New York to Well Hall, the story of the Cooper family in the 1850s http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/from-new-york-to-well-hall-story-of.html

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from her new book Eltham Through Time, Amberley Publishing, 2013,

Ms Bedford also has an interesting web site, Ancestral Deeds, http://www.ancestraldeeds.co.uk/

Choose your friends ....The Delian League ....power politics in 5th century Greece on the wireless

Now this is one I am going to listen to.

Hoplite 5th century, 2018

It's the latest offer from In Our Time on BBC Radio 4.

"Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. 

Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars. 

After the defeat of a second Persian invasion in 478 BCE, a league of cities across Greece came together and formed a new alliance led by Athens. That alliance is now known as the Delian League, after the island of Delos where it was established. 

In the following decades, Athens used the Delian League to grow its own wealth and formidable naval power. But cities who tried to leave the alliance found themselves violently put down and their lands confiscated by the Athenians. 

What had begun as a cooperative alliance sworn to resist the Persian Empire gradually started to seem like it may have created another imperial power: the Athenian Empire.

With Leah Lazar, Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of Manchester, Polly Low, Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham, and, Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen"*

Location; In Our Time, BBC Radio 4

Pictures; Hoplite 5th century, 2018, Jona Lendering, his file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication and the Thermopylae pass at the area of the Phocian Wall, Author Fkerasar, Licensing, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses

*The Delian League, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xp5l