On small things history turns …. commemorating the Hardy Lane Co-op

Last week I was reflecting and reporting on the story of one Co-op store with heaps of history.*

Some of Co-op Party behind the Guild banner, circa 1980s

It is the Hardy Lane Co-op on the corner of Barlow Moor Road and Hardy Lane, and it has been serving the community since it opened in 1929.

What makes the shop a tad unique is that it still retains its meeting room which for just under a century has hosted political meetings, been used as election committee rooms and been a venue for a host of other events from film nights to whist evenings.

And there will be many who remember it with affection as the place where they were introduced to the Woodcraft Folk, which “is a movement for children and young people, open to everyone from birth to adult, offering a place where children will grow in confidence, learn about the world and start to understand how to value our planet and each other”.**

Last year it celebrated its centenary and so just pips our meeting room.

I first washed up in the room sometime around 1979 where the local branch of the Co-op Party held its monthly meetings and there on the wall were the banners of the National Guild of Co-operatives and  the banner of the Chorlton and Manley Road Co-operative Women’s Guild.

Chorlton and Manley Coperative Women's Guild, 1937

"The National Guild of Co-operators was established in 1926 as an organisation of men and women aged from sixteen years, who are or are willing to become members of their local co-operative society, and are united by a common interest in the co-operative movement.

The guild has been instrumental in lobbying government on matters of national concern as far ranging as anti nuclear power issues and saving rural post offices."*** 

And close by was Chorlton and Manley Coperative Women's Guild dating from 1922 which was a branch of the Coperative Women's Guild formed as The Women's League for the Spread of Co-operation in 1883, changing its name to the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1885 

It was involved in many campaigns, including the campaign for female favouring the less violent approach of the Suffragists.

The Guild continued to campaign until universal suffrage was finally granted in 1928.

Other campaigns included those around maternity rights and financial support for working class women, who often had large families due to a lack of access to contraception and sexual health information, and could try and procure backstreet abortions which were dangerous as well as illegal. 

The Guild supported the work of Marie Stopes in family planning and better provision of maternity and infant care. 

This led to the Shipley Society opening the first ever co-operative maternity care centre in 1920- which would have been a radical move in the pre-NHS years.***

Freedom of the Branch, 1947

And amongst all of that will have been the  Chorlton and Manley Road Co-operative Women’s Guild. 

As yet I know very little about its activities, but I do know that in 1947 Alice Lomas was awarded a certificate conferring “the Freedom of the Branch for services rendered to the Guild Cause during her membership of 25 years.”

During the 1920s and 30s Alice lived at 20 Provis Road in Chorlton. I know she was born in 1894 and married William Lomas in 1913.

And the rest as they say is all to be discovered and in the process, I rather think we will uncover lots more of the activities of the Chorlton and Manley Road Co-operative Women’s Guild.

In the meantime, the historic significance of the meeting rooms will be marked by a Blue Plaque on the exterior of the Co-op sometime in July of this year.

It is a fitting commemoration of the role the Co-op rooms have played in the community and reflects the history of the last century.

Location; The Hardy Lane Co-op

Pictures; Chorlton and Manley Road Co-operative Women’s Guild banner circa 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Freedom of the Branch, 1947, courtesy of Dave King, Chorlton and Manley Road Co-operative Women’s Guild banner, 1937, from the collection of Lawrence Beedle, Blue Plaque, Chorlton Civic Society, 2026

*Just how do you honour a shop with history?....... https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2026/05/just-how-do-you-honour-shop-with-history.html

**The Woodcraft Folk, https://woodcraft.org.uk/

***National Guild of Co-operators, https://www.uk.coop/directory/national-guild-co-operators

**** The Story of the Co-op Women’s Guild Liz MvIvor, https://www.co-operativeheritage.coop/blog/the-story-of-the-co-operative-womens-guild

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 12 Chancellery Lane

Now I had wandered over to Spring Gardens to find Concert Lane and instead rediscovered this last bit of Chancellery Place most of which is broad enough but then narrows as it does a slight twist and opens up on Pall Mall.

Both of them are streets I have known for forty years and just rather took them for granted, but now I am wandering them all over again

Location; Manchester








Picture; Chancellery Place, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost images of Whalley Range part 2 the petrol pumps

I wonder when these petrol pumps on Upper Chorlton Road were taken away.

They were recorded by A.H.Downes in the summer of 1960 and were on the site of the furniture store.

In an age of big computer operated petrol pumps which do all most everything but make a coffee I like these three.

Simple design, and simple machinery but they did the business and take me back to my childhood.

They come from that time when someone would come out of the garage and work the pump,offering to wipe the windscreen and was available for motoring advice.

You still find this service in places like Greece and rural Italy and no doubt even here in remote communities.

They have long since vanished but the telephone kiosk was still on the same spot just a few years ago.

Picture; Petrol-Pump, Whalley Range, Upper Chorlton Road, north east side, 1960, A.H.Downes, m40781 and again in 1973, photographer unknown, m40728, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

Stories of the Great War from Eltham and Woolwich ............. nu 1 the milestone on Shooters Hill

An occasional series reflecting on the impact of the Great War.

Now I have to say I never really knew the story of the war memorial outside Christ Church on Shooters Hill.

I will have passed it countless times, but when you are young war memorials scarcely register especially when there is the promise of an unknown adventure in the woods behind.

But reading it now is to be reminded of the terrible loss of life during the Great War.

The inscription is simple and to the point.

What gives the memorial its added significance is that it is part of an older milestone of which I knew nothing.

And for that knowledge I have Tricia Lesley to thank who unearthed a wonderful history of Woolwich which gives a detailed description of the milestone and the war memorial.

“Originally on the other side of the road, having been placed there by the New Cross Turnpike Trust, the eighth milestone out of London on the Old Dover Road was accidentally fractured by a Borough Council steam roller during road repairs in 1903.

The Dartford plate had been totally destroyed in the collision.

It was thrown aside to be broken up but Vicar Wilson, with authority from the Borough Engineer removed the pieces to the church grounds where they were dowelled together and set up near the church door.

When the church war memorial was being discussed, Col. Bagnold, chairman of the parish war memorial committee, suggested fixing on the eastern side of the stone a plate indicating the distance to Ypres, with the addition of figures telling of the casualties incurred in defending the salient.  

The Director-general of the Ordinance Survey was called and arrived at the figure of 130 miles to the cloth Hall, correct to one-tenth of a mile.

The whole memorial was unveiled by Major General Sir Webb Gillman and dedicated by the Rector of Woolwich in October, 1922."*

All of which leaves me to say I have the book on order, and wish I had the opportunity to repeat the magic adventure in the woods.

Pictures; memorial stone, courtesy of Running Past, @running_past, Shooters Hill, courtesy of Jean Gammons, 1977 and cover of The Woolwich Story 

* The Woolwich Story, 1970, E. F. E. Jefferson.

'Sixty Years of Hurt with David Baddiel' .... a fascinating story on the wireless today

Despite not being interested in football, here is a series of broadcasts I have been drawn to.

It is available on Saturdays and there after from BBC Radio 4.*

"'Sixty Years of Hurt with David Baddiel' explores the meaning of England and Englishness through the history of the England Men’s Football team. 

This is a social and cultural history as much as a sporting one, examining the story England tells about itself and how it's changed, via the medium of the international game.

Football is singularly the most important cultural institution in the country for defining Englishness” says Historian David Goldblatt, as the series begins looking at the most famous moment in English football – the world cup win in 1966. Comedian, writer and football fan, David Baddiel, sees how the victory adorned swinging London, and yet the characters in the team spoke to a very different kind of England. 

David also travels back to the very origins of the game in England (discovering that Henry VIII had a pair of football boots), checks in with Elis James for a view from Wales, and muses on the meaning of national anthems.

The series delves deep into how national myths are both forged and reflected in the fate of eleven young men with three lions on their shirts. 

It takes in the view from England’s sporting rivals, from Wales to Argentina, and asks what light the success of England’s Woman casts on the story of England’s Men.

Across the series, David Baddiel will be joined by contributors including Stephen Fry, Alex James, Maisie Adam, Elis James, Barney Ronay, Roy Williams, Des Lynam, Stuart Pearce, Jean Williams, David Goldblatt, Pippa Grange, Jonathan Wilson, David Seaman, Omid Djalili and many more.

Sixty Years of Hurt with David Baddiel is produced by BBC Studios Audio for BBC Radio 4, in collaboration with Left Bank Pictures who are producing the upcoming drama Dear England for BBC iPlayer and BBC One.

The producers are Rich Power and David Baddiel."

Location; BBC Radio 4

Pictures; football figurines, circa 1990s courtesy of Ben, Josh and Saul, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Sixty Years of Hurt with David Baddiel, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002wlk2

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 13 Old Bank Street

Now I know that Old Bank Street is not lost and has not been forgotten.

It is after all used by heaps of people every day taking the short cut from St Ann's Square up on to Cross Street.

But it's narrow, has been there a long time and so qualified.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Old Bank Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A bit of nostalgia for the Eltham of the 1960s

In the garden of 294 Well Hall, June 1964

Today I have descended into bit nostalgia for the Eltham of my youth.

Now this is not something I do often, after all nostalgia is a bit of a false trail.

In my experiences the sun didn’t always shine, ice cream was limited to those blocks of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate and you only ventured upstairs on a bus if you wanted to breathe in clouds of tobacco smoke.

And yet there was something special about growing up in Eltham in the 1960s.

I guess it started with the discovery of the woods just above where we lived on Well Hall Road.

Once in there they just seemed to go on and on.  Never underestimate that sense of adventure and sheer freedom that comes from walking the woods which of course is also matched by the knowledge that you can’t really get lost, for eventually if you walked far enough there was Welling while to the north was Shooters Hill and south Eltham Park.

All of which was pretty exciting to someone whose had grown up around New Cross.

© Scott Macdonald

And then there was the Pleasuance which with its barn and moat had a charm all of its own.  Not that I knew of the depth of its history, or of Well Hall House that 18th century mansion or the connection with Edith Nesbit.

But the place still had a magic with its Tudor walls and garden and summer evening concerts which the ever present railway station and trains did not spoil.

Thinking about I spent a lot of my time at Well Hall Station travelling back to school in New Cross for nearly three years and the crowded homewrd jorney in the afternoon rush hour.  Even now I can picture the scene as the train slowed to take the curve into the station and there in the distance was that impressive view of Shooters Hill, all trees dominating the horizon.

Not that the morning rush hour was the best time to take in the place.  For me that had to be late morning on a hot sunny day with just one other passenger on the platform.

There was stillness about the place and the only distraction was the smell from the warm oil which had soaked into the old wooden sleepers and  left its trail on the ballast stone.

© Scott Macdonald

All of which was shattered with that twanging noise from the wires to the signal box alerting you and the railway staff that the train was on its way.

I continued to use the station as a way of escaping back to New Cross and my old friends for a few months, before this gawky ill at ease teenager discovered that apart from the woods and the Pleasaunce Eltham had even more to offer.

That started with exploring the High Street and continuing on down along Bexley Road past Avery Hill Park.  And had I known it to the north was Crown Woods which a little over two years after we washed up in

Eltham was where I would go.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Scott MacDonald.