Watching the Meadows change ......... June 1965

I wonder just how many people remember this scene?

We are on the Meadows, and according to the caption this was “June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot”.

It is one of the photographs generated by Neil Simpson who “ worked on the Town Hall Photographer's Collection Digitisation Project, in the Central Library, which currently is Volunteer led and Volunteer staffed.

The negatives in the collection are dated from 1956 to 2007 and there are approximately 200,000 negatives to be digitised at three minutes a scan.

This is an image I have never seen before and I am guessing the building must be Hardy Farm.

That said I am puzzled by the bit of the caption referring to Water Street and am not too arrogant to admit to being stumped by it.

I have never come across the name during all my years in Chorlton, or in the research I have done.

So this is one to turn over to anyone who remembers the scene, walked that bit of Hardy Lane or can offer an explanation to the name.

Of course there might be a clue in the buildings in the distance which don't suggest we are looking at where Hardy Lane runs out on to the Meadows.

I wonder whether were instead on Turn Moss with Stretford in the distance.

And that just leaves me to open up the debate, which no sooner had I posted the story and Bill Sumner replied, with,

"I think the view above is taken from the bottom of Bradley Lane next to the water treatment/sewage works. the line of electric pylons is correct and is still there today, but the gas holder is not the one at Gorse Hill Stretford but the one at Dane Road Sale. 

Looking on Old Maps I cannot find a Water St either. The Dane Roadd Gas Holder was built in 1935 on the old sewage works site and was built as an extension to Stretford Gas Co that also supplied Sale and Ashton on Mersey. 

The gas holder in Stretford would have been out of sight to the left of photo. The old cottage would have disappeared because the Stretford Works was enlarged and a row of staff houses built here in the 1960's, probably the reason this photo was taken. Thanks for the new view"

And quick as a flash Neil also responded with "I can answer some of your questions Andrew. 

This image was in a set taken for Manchester Corporation's Cleansing Department, who were based at a huge site on Water Street near MOSI in Manchester. 

They had a Destructor on that site (is an incinerator) and roughly sorted the refuse collected into 'for burning' or 'tipping'.

Some of the refuse for tipping was taken to Hardy Lane Farm as they were using it to 'reclaim' land.

Bill Sumner was quite right in saying that the Gasholder was the one at Dane Road as I worked that out earlier."

And the final word goes to Ann who spotted the obvious, "have just read your comment, think the quotation should read ' Cleaning water, Street Cleansing Dept' Comma missing. Explains why there isn't a Water Street in Chorlton."

Not much more to say than thank you,  Bill, Neil.and Ann

Location; the Meadows

Picture; June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Lesnes Abbey ..........once lost and now found courtesy of Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society

Lesnes Abbey was a place I discovered purely by chance in the summer of 1966.

The north wast wall of the abbey, 2013

At sixteen I was a bit old for an adventure but that was what it was and I was captivated by the place.

Now depending on your take on Tudor history it was either one of those monasteries Henry V111 knocked about in pursuit of a bit of extra cash or was a legitimate target in the campaign to reform the church of some of its more corrupt practices.

Either way it was one of the first to be closed in 1525. In time I will go looking for the records of the abbey to see how corrupt it might have been but for now I know it didn’t offer up much in the way of glittering prizes and apart from one building the entire monastery was demolished .

I have to confess that back in 1966 what I knew about the Dissolution of the Monasteries was not much and it never occurred to me to wonder how what was lost was found.

In fact it is only since I joined the Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society that I have discovered its history.

The plaque to Frank Charles Elliston-Erwood

During 1909-10 the society carried out an archaeological dig, and recently one of those involved has been honoured by a blue plaque which has been placed on his house in Foxcroft Road Shooters Hill.

This was Frank Charles Elliston-Erwood who was born in 1883 and died in 1968.

Sadly another plaque to him on the site is badly damaged so the one on Foxcroft Road is important.

And that is where I shall leave it other than to promise I will dig deep and find out more about both Mr Elliston-Erwood and the dig.

Charles Elliston-Erwood  by C A Rohn, 1953

According to the Treasuer of the Society, "the excavation between 1909-13 and report published in 1915 on Lesnes Abbey was paid for by WADAS.

I’m sure the Central Ref will have a copy, its full title is :-Lesnes Abbey in the Parish of Erith Kent by Alfred W Clapham F.S.A.  (he later became Sir Alfred Clapham) London the Cassio press 1915

It does also come up for sale now & again at £70-£90.

WADAS and Bexley Council paid for further excavations and the laying out of the site in the 1950’s Frank Elliston-Erwood worked on the 1909-13 excavation, & the 1950’s. 

He produced most of the line drawings in the report, he was a Technical Drawing teacher.

I’ve attached a watercolour of him at the 1950’s excavations, he made & is wearing our Presidential badge."

Location; Abbey Wood

Pictures; North west wall of Lesnes Abbey, 2013, Ethan Doyle at English Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license and the blue plaque and painting courtesy of Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society

* Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society, "Report on Explorations at Lesnes Abbey Kent", several volumes 1909 to 1912

** Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society, The Hon Treasurer, 4 Hill End , Shooters Hill, London SE 18 3 NH

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 6 ............ Gravel Lane

Now I know that strictly speaking Gravel Lane is neither lost nor forgotten.

It runs from Blackfriars Road up to Greengate, but that first chunk is hidden underneath the railway viaducts which make it a tad foreboding.

But if you do wander into that dark cavern you will be rewarded by some fine cast iron pillars on the corner of Viaduct Street.

These support the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s track which was constructed in 1844 and while it was a substantial structure carrying four railway lines it was not yet the structure we know today.

Back in the late 1840s looking out from the north side of Trinity Church there was still a wide expanse of space beyond which were a  Rope Walk, a series of mills and foundries and a timber yard.

Gravel Lane, 1849

And a walk up Gravel Lane in 1849 would have taken you past the Methodist Chapel, a whole shed load of houses with access to some closed courts and Christ Church which stood between King Street and Queen Street.

All a little different today.

Location; Salford

Pictures; Gravel Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1849, from the OS for Manchester and Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

"The World Turned Upside Down"....The Levellers today ..... on the wireless

Now I have always been fascinated by that upsurge of political debate before, during and after the English Civil War.

An Agreement of the People, 1647

From discussions on politics and democracy, to arguments about how the land and wealth should be more equitablty distributed, to competing religious visions,  the middle decades of the 17th century had the lot.

I often return to the Putney Debates when the army of Parliament sat down and talked out the future of England  after the Civil War.  Debates which were echoed again in Februray 1944 when members of the Eighth Army in Cairo, met, and debated on their expectations of a post war Britain, voting for the nationalisation of banks, land, mines, and transport in the United Kingdom.*

All of which means I have booked my seat beside the wireless today to listen to the "Levellers", from the BBC Radio Four programme In Our Time.**

In which "Misha Glenny and guests discuss the group which came to be known as the Levellers and emerged during what would become arguably one of the bloodiest and most turbulent periods of English history. 

After the First English Civil War, the Levellers started calling for reforms to achieve legal and social equality. They pushed for a new constitution, extended franchise, popular sovereignty, and religious toleration. 

To do this, the Levellers pioneered the use of pamphlets and petitions, as well as taking to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate wearing their signature sea-green ribbons and sprigs of rosemary. 

To some they were radical, and to others not radical enough. Though the Leveller movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that they made have both inspired and challenged generations since.

Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024

With, Teresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford, Ted Vallance, Professor of History and Dean of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton, and, Clare Jackson, Honorary Professor of Early Modern History and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen"

And because I can I will remember the three soldiers who were sympatheic to the Levellers and who took part in the Banbury Mutiny and were executed.

Location;In Our Time, BBC, Radio 4

Burford Church, 2024

Pictures; An Agreement of the People, 1647,Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024, and Burford Church, 2024 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *Cairo Forces Parliament, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Forces_Parliament as well as The Troops' Parliament, Karl Hansen, Tribune, May 8, 2023, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/05/the-troops-parliament and The Desert Parliament , Olivia Humphreys October 26th, 2019, Tribune, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/10/the-desert-parliament

**The Levellers, In Our Time, BBC, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wkhq 

Unseen photographs of Hough End Hall and Mrs Annie Elizabeth Roberts

Now the story of Hough End Hall never quite leaves me and I have always been prepared for new pictures and new tales of the lives behind its doors.

Mrs Roberts in the garden, circa 1920s

About a year ago I was given an album of photographs of the last family to live in the hall and farm the surrounding land.

And then more reently I met Mr Stuart Bolton who kindly shared some pictures and newspaper clippings from his great grandmother who worked at the hall.

She was “Annie Elizabeth Roberts, nee Halfpenny; formerly Bateman. I believe she worked at Hough End Hall for about twenty years, from the 1910s to the 1930s.

I think the first one was taken in the 1920s and the second one was taken by the newspaper photographer in the early/mid 1960s.

I am also attaching the clipping from the newspaper which we think it was from the Manchester Evening News from the early/mid ‘60s, unfortunately it’s not dated.”

Mrs Roberts, by the Hall, in 1963

The pictures are just sheer magic and offer up more on the history of the Hall when it was still a working farmhouse.

Until recently there were few images of the building and the family from the early 20th century and these add to our knowledge.

There will be no one now who remembers the garden when it was in its pristine state and pretty soon the memories of the hall in its last sad stage during the 1960s will also fade.

And it is well to remember that from the early 1920s the fate of the Hall hung in the balance.

Newspaper story, possibly the MEN, 1963

There were plans to demolish it for the new road which was planned to run out of the city to and despite more than a few imaginative suggestions for its use during the inter war years it eventually became prey to vandals.

Nor were the developers kind to it.  In the words of one expert they “botched “the job of restoration and then proceeded to hide the hall behind those two ugly office complexes.

Its subsequent use as a restaurant, pub and offices met that all the internal features have long gone, leaving on the original Elizabethan staircase which now resides in Tatton Hall.

So Stuart’s pictures and the story that I know will emerge from them will advance our knowledge and in the process if he is happy I shall tell the story of his great-grandmother.

Location; Hough End Hall

Pictures; Annie Elizabeth Roberts and Hough End Hall from the collection of Stuart Bolton

When the Ferry met Dan Dare and arrived on our door mat ...... a thank you to Tricia

Now I had no idea that the Woolwich Ferry would fall through our letter box today.

I say the Ferry but it was one of those cut away diagrams which featured in the Eagle Comic.

All of which made it a nice double whammy because as everyone knows I have a “thing” for the Ferry, but also because The Eagle was and still is my comic.

It was launched in 1950 and around 1959 I discovered it in the classroom of 3B in Edmund Waller School on one of those wet playtimes, and I was hooked and I spent a chunk of the ‘90s buying up copies, eventually splashing out on whole volumes.

But Vol 13 No. 32 which came out on August 11 1962 wasn’t one of them although it will have been one I read.

And now it has joined the collection which is all due to Tricia who knowing my fascination for the Ferry found it on eBay and the rest was a click of the mouse and a trip to the post office.

It arrived today and I am a very happy chap.

The cutaway diagram was one of the most popular features of the comic and week in week out we would be treated to the workings of the Routemaster Bus, the Spitfire, endless submarines, railway locomotives and even a series on atomic powered vehicles, including an aircraft and rocket.

It fitted the optimistic 1950s when all things seemed possible, including the fact that the top test pilot for Space Fleet would Dan Dare who had been born in Manchester and the head of the organization would not be an American or a Russian but Sir Hubert Guest.

That said Space Fleet was under the direction of the United Nations.

By the time the Woolwich Ferry appeared Dan Dare had been bundled away to the inside and LT. Hornblower, RN carried the front page while the cutaway now sat at the back.

None of this has diminished my pleasure at re-reading an old friend after fifty-six years.

And yes I have poured over the cutaway and even fancy I have located my favourite seat.

So here for all is the cutaway with special thanks to Tricia and links to stories about the Eagle Comic*, Comics of the 1950s**, and Eagle Times***, which is the journal of the Eagle Society

Location; Woolwich, 1962

Picture; The New Woolwich Ferry and the front cover of the Eagle, Vol 13 No.32 August 11 1962

*The Eagle; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

**Comics of the 1950s, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Comics%20of%20the%201950s

*** Eagle Times, Annual subscription UK £29, overseas £40, and as a start you can visit the site https://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 5 ............ what you find on Blackfriars Road

I am always fascinated by those narrow little passageways which hold the promise of all sorts of dark stories.

Passageway, 2016

Now this one has no name, and leads to Harding Street which today just gives access to a car park under the railway arches from Salford Approach.

So our little passageway seems hardly worth a second glance, but not so.

Go back to 1849 and it led to a closed court called Nightingale Square which in turn took you on to Harding’s Buildings which was the original Harding Street.

Here could be found 23 properties some of which were back to back and a whole warren of alleys on either side.

All were lost with the construction of the new railway viaduct and Exchange Station in 1884.

All of which just leaves me to go looking for the two buildings that stood on either side of our passage.

These were the Salford Library and Mechanic’s Institution to the left and The Royal Archer Public House to the right.

Now I am pretty sure there will be someone who can point me towards pictures of the Library and offer up rich stories of its contribution to Salford life.

In the same way I am also confident that The Royal Archer will reveal something of its past/

This I suspect will start with the names of some of the landords and if we are lucky a date for its opening.

It was there by 1849 and may well be much older than that.  In 1851 it was run by Margaret Horton and with a name we may be able to find out more.

Sadly Harding's Buildiings and Nightingale Square were not considered important enough for inclusion in the directories.

But Margaret Horton should be on the 1851 census and by following the streets from her pub it might be possible to come across both Harding's Buildings and Nightingale Square and in turn uncover the people who lived there.

We shall see.

To which Alan Jennings has added "You mention the Royal Archer, It can be traced back to about 1779 when Samuel Chantler opened an Alehouse called the Black Bull, In 1812 it was listed as the Robin Hood, occupied by Robert Armstrong, After Margaret Houghton the landlord was Thomas Callow in the 1860s. The pub stood on land owned by the Earl of Derby, and it was acquired by the Corporation when the new Blackfriars Road was being planned. In 1873, Thomas Sykes was the tenant and he applied to transfer the licence to a new Royal Archer Hotel which was being built on Lower Broughton Road, the transfer was eventually granted a few years later. I hope that this helps, Andrew."

Thank you Alan.

Location; Salford

Pictures; passageway on Blackfriars Road, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1849, from the OS for Manchester and Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/