Suggestions for a Christmas present and an outrageous piece of self promotion The History of Greater Manchester By Tram

 It is one of those original ways of telling stories of Greater Manchester and fits in with that slightly quirky way that me and Peter Topping have brought you the history of where we live.

The idea of telling the story of Greater Manchester by using the tram network has a lot going for it.

You can catch a tram from the city centre and go south, east, north, and west and along the way each of the 99 stops will have a story to tell, and being the tram, you can just jump off, explore this little pocket of history and move on. 

Or skip to the end destinations and discover interesting historical things about Didsbury, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Rochdale, Oldham, Salford and bits of Trafford, Altrincham and Bury.

And this is the new project Peter, and I have chosen for a series of new books.

Each book will wander along the network, taking in nine stops or so at a time, with original paintings by Peter, old photographs, and stories by me. 

The first two in the series can be found in Chorlton Bookshop, Waterstones on Deansgate, and in the shop in Central Ref or from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk, price £4.99**

Ok everyone …. the Lych Gate is open again

It’s that brick, stone and wooden tower which is one of the iconic images of where we live.

2024

So much so that many of us take it for granted and barely realized that after 137 years it needed some tender care and attention.

2024

It had been erected to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee, and was a bold statement of support for the old St Clement’s Church which dated from 1800 and stood on the site of an older wattle and daub chapel which had been built at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Today it is perhaps surprising to discover that there had been a time when we had two churches which both went under the name of St Clement’s and that this had its roots in the  Great Chorlton Church schism, when the congregation split over where to build a new church.

The 1800 building was seen to be too small and various sites for a new one were explored, but with no agreement one wing went off, accepted the offer of a parcel of land on Edge Lane and built a new church.

But the authorities retained the old church as the place for baptisms, marriages and burials, and one of the wealthy members of the congregation donated money to enhance the old church.

This was Cunlifee Brooks who lived at Barlow Hall and his donations included money for a grand new east window and the impressive lych gate.

2024

In 1993 the gate had a make over which concentrated on the roof of the bell tower.

But earlier this year a more extensive renovation was undertaken by the City Council looking to use materials which were sympathetic to the original.

The work was finished last week, and the scaffolding came down revealing the structure pretty much as it would have looked like in 1887.

And over the last week and a bit heaps of people have gone down to the green and taken their own pictures to which I now add mine, along with one taken back in 1980 when it had yet to reach its hundredth birthday.

Since then it has stood over a series of archaelogical digs, and watched as more than 350 of the headstones from the graveyard were removed and the site landscapped.

Location; The Lych Gate

Pictures; the restored Lych Gate, 2024, and in 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

1980

 

My Manchester ..... Piccadilly Gardens and beyond

 Pretty much all life passes through Piccadilly Bus station.

And I know it's a claim that can be made for any big transport hub, be it a bus station, railway termininus or city centre tram stop.

But on that December grey morning with the Christmas markets waiting for customers, I was on the edge of the gardens looking across at City Towers and remembering just how busy it has been during all the years I have been here.

And that amounts to 55 years.

And that is it.

Location; looking out from Piccadilly Gardens

Picture; Busy at City Tower, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Eltham Cinema and a word to the wise

Now here is a building that just passed me by.

Eltham Cinema, 1913-1968

It is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.”

Like so many of the early cinemas it proved “not fit for purpose” when the newer plusher and more modern looking picture houses came along later in the century.

Holmfirth Picturedrome, 1912

A few of these old palaces of dreams do survive like the Picturedrome at Holmfirth.

It is was opened in 1912 and is a big enough to seat a couple of hundred people, has a double set of doors, with a veranda above it and must have made you feel special each time you went to watch that magic of light and moving pictures played out in the dark.

It was so at our cinema and the memories of some of those who attended the Eltham Cinema have been recorded but it is a pity that the building was lost.

There will be somewhere more pictures of the place, and perhaps even images of the inside along with the odd bit of furniture.

Palais de Luxe, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 2013

And these can turn up in the most surprising of places.

I was reminded of this when I persuaded the staff of the local Co-op to allow me upstairs into the warehouse floor.  The building had been opened as the Palais de Luxe in 1915 and converted into a supermarket in the late 1950s.

But upstairs high in the roof space at one end of the building was all that remained of the plaster mouldings which stood above the cinema screen.*

Palais de Luxe, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1924

Of course such finds are increasingly rare and most of us are now forced back on those old photographs and picture postcards.

These are themselves not always readily available.  Some are stored in local history collections and others appear picture books.

There is a fine collection in the book Eltham In Old Photographs.**

And one in particular caught my eye of that part of Court Yard now dominated Grove Market Place.

I say dominated but that is not completely accurate because the small shopping area is undergoing redevelopment and it was while reading about the controversy surrounding the plans that I realized I had no idea when it was built.

There on page 78 as the answer.  It was opened in 1967 and once again I realized that another bit of Eltham’s history had passed me by.

I have either forgotten or was totally oblivious to the demolition of the old properties and building of the Market Place.

This is all the more appalling when within two years I was using the bank on the corner and for years after Dad went to the shop opposite for his paint.

All of which reinforces that simple rule, never take anything for granted, watch for the news of a new planning application and always have a camera with you.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, Holmfirth Picturedrome and interior of the old Palase de Luxe Chorlton from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/forgotten-photograph-palais-de-luxe-in.html

** Eltham In Old Photographs, John Kennet, 1991, Alan Sutton Publishing

Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

A ladybird, a Christmas annual and an advert

We tend to think of advertising aimed at children as something new, but not so.

Here from the Swift comic annual, is a bit of science mixed up with a bit of advertising.

Pictures; from the Swift comic annual, 1958

Suggestions for a Christmas present and an outrageous piece of self promotion ........ nu 12.... The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Now very soon lots of you will be pondering on Christmas presents and so with that in mind here is the third suggestion.

Day five and The Story of Chorlton-cum Hardy.

Here for the first time is a detailed account of an agricultural community that was just 4 miles from Manchester and  the people who lived here, using their own words and records.

It tells of daily lives, setting them in a national context, and balances the routine with the sensational - including murder, infanticide and a rebellion.

Partly a narrative of rural life and a description of a community's relationship with a city, the book also include guided walks around Chorlton a database of references and sources.

Available from Chorlton Book shop, 506 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW 0161 881 6374, other bookshops and from the History Press

Goodbye to the ABC in the High Street .................. 1972

Now this picture postcard of the old ABC cinema in the High Street has a lot going for it.

For a start there is that simple observation that few of us send picture postcards today.

Mobile phones with cameras which can snap and send an image around the world in seconds have pretty much done for the old picture postcard.

Of course long before this technological whizz the postcard had its day.  The cost of postage and the demise of the frequent postal collection and delivery meant that bit by bit they were used less and less.

Unlike the start of the last century when if you wanted to arrange to meet in the afternoon or tell family you’d be home later that day the postcard was the thing.

And the early 70s I guess was the cross over point when the sale and use of the picture card was in decline.

Not that the Eltham Society thought so when they produced this one which was number 4 in a series on Eltham and may well have been chosen to mark the passing of this picture house which had opened its doors in the August of 1922 and closed half a century later.

I have fond memories of the place, it was after all a safer choice than the Odeon to take a girlfriend given that we lived just a few minute’s walk from the roundabout and you never wanted to encounter family on your first date.

Its passing caught me unawares.  At the beginning of 1972 I went back to College in Manchester and when I returned at Easter it had shown its last film and gone dark.

I can’t now remember if I took in a film at the cinema before I left home but given that the ABC was showing the newly released Steptoe and Son I don’t think I did.

And that may gives us a day in January for when the photograph was taken.

Of course given the large number of young people waiting outside it could be a Saturday but as the film was classified an A and there are plenty of adults accompanying the children it is equally likely that it will be a matinee in what was left of the holidays.

So I guess I shall have to go looking in the local press for January 1972 and in the meantime reflect on the wonderful collection of images held by the Greenwich Heritage Centre, from where I found this one.

Pictures, Eltham ABC, 1972, GRW 1647, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php