Riding the Stang ….. and other customs from the 1840s …….. walking Chorlton’s past this coming Sunda

Now if you want to know about Chorlton’s past, one of the best ways is to walk it in the company of a local historian and heaps of interested people.

Old St Clement’s Church circa 1870s 

Starting at the corner of Beech Road and Barlow Moor at 2pm on Sunday, we will progress via several stops to the old village green and on across High Lane to the home of the Edge Theatre.

Along the way there will be more than a few dark and interesting tales of Chorlton in the 1840s, including the custom of Riding the Stang, the murder of a young farmer, more than a few accounts of rural life and the very important advice on who to be polite to.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1854

And having walked the walk, the day will end at the Dressing Room Café with their renowned soup and mulled wine in the former Methodist Sunday School which was once a Red Cross Hospital and today is home to the Edge Theatre.

Assemble at the corner of Beech Road and Barlow Moor Road at 2pm on Sunday September 19th.

The walk is part of Chorlton Book Festival, which runs from September 17th-25th *

The cost is a modest £7.50, which includes oodles of history and of course the soup and mulled wine and tickets can be bought by following the link.**

Pictures; old St Clement’s Church circa 1870s from the collection of Tony Walker, and detail from the 1854 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ old 

*Chorlton Book Festival September 17th-25th, https://www.chorltonbookfestival.co.uk/

** Walking Chorlton’s Past Sunday September 19th, £7.50, including refreshments at the Dressing Room Café after the walk. Book @ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chorlton-book-festival-local-history-walk-with-andrew-simpson-tickets-159588675023

A Labour candidate ......the Beswick Co-op store ..... and a day in 1967

Now I wonder if Reg, the Labour candidate was successful.

He was the Labour Party candidate in the by-election held on Thursday June 24th, 1965.

I don’t have a surname, but a trawl of the local papers for June 1965 will reveal all.

Given that he was standing for the New Cross Labour Party I suspect he was.

The rest as  they is all in the picture, which is of the Beswick Co-op grocery shop on Aden Street.

The picture dates from 1967, and was one of a collection taken during the decade in advance of the clearance programmes.

Many like me will instantly remember shops like this, with their simple promotional material and range of products which filled our store cupboards, and have pretty much vanished in the face of the supermarkets, convenience stores and online shopping.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Manchester, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 3 the old Brewery 1929

Now I am a great fan of the work of Mr Llwyd Roberts.

He was during the 1930s our artist in residence and during that time produced a heap of line drawings of Eltham and the surrounding area.

Some were reproduced from old photographs while others  were as he saw them at the time.

This is old Brewery which  which dates from 1928 in a building which according to Mr Roberts "originally a brewery, the upper floor of this building was later converted into the Baptist Meeting Room.  The brewery stood at the entrance of Jubilee Cottages, and the building was pulled down in 1928."


Picture; old brewery drawn 1929, Llwyd Roberts

What did the Norman’s Ever do for Us? ….. all day on the wireless today

Well, they were either a marauding band of super gangsters who stole a country, or just another group who crossed the seas to come, settle and make a contribution.

The Battle

Of course, like all the other collections of people from the Neolithic through to 1066 they left their mark in a heap of ways.

And that is what BBC Radio 4 is going to explore today.

It’s already started with segments on the Today Programme and will march on across the day with a few repeats tonight.

The background to all this is the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum and the official opening of the exhibition to the public.

The great, the good and others have already had sneak previews, and yesterday the King and Queen, the French President and our Prime Minister were invited to gaze on that famous tapestry which is in fact an embroidery not a tapestry. 

It came home in July and had a resting period but is now ready to be seen.is coming home.

I remain ambivalent at the event but that was for another blog and others I wrote back in July.*

So for now thank you BBC Radio 4 for what promises to be a memorable day for anyone who likes their history ….. even if it’s the Normans.

The first up will be What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? BBC Radio 4, when “Historians Dr Eleanor Parker, Professor Levi Roach and Alex Burghart MP, writers Kate Mosse, Muriel Zagha and Jade Cuttle trace how the Normans shaped British history and culture”.**

Followed by a heap of wireless articles.

And all available all day and on BBC Catch up by following the link.

Leaving me just to include from BBC Culture 'Chest-thumping machismo': The Bayeux Tapestry' reveals the bloody, bawdy truth about the Middle Ages.****

Postcards or comments to the blog will be welcomed on that question of were the Normans a marauding band of super gangsters who stole a country, or just another group who crossed the seas to come settle, and make a contribution?

Bishop Odo

P.S. and having listened to the first contribution which was What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? , if the remaining day's broadcast are as good, it will indeed be  a day to sit beside the wireless.  

That first programme was thoughtful, interesting and above all I learned something.

I had no idea that a group of English emigress settled in the Crimea at the invitation of the Byzantine Emperor and were there till the arival of the Tarters.

Pictures; bits from the Bayeux Tapestry, Ticket site, British Museum site 

*The Bayeux Tapestry, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Bayeux%20Tapestry

** What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030zjy

***Norman Day, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl7j

**** 'Chest-thumping machismo': The Bayeux Tapestry, BBC Culture, https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20260820-the-medieval-manosphere-of-the-bayeux-tapestry

On Shooters Hill ………………… with We Anchor in Hope

Now I have no memory of the pub We Anchor in Hope.

But then when I roamed over the woods and down Shooter’s Hill and on to Welling, I was still well under the age when “dirty beer” was an attraction.

Still I am very pleased that Brian sent this picture over this morning, because it captures perfectly this stretch of the old road as I remember it.

The picture postcard is undated, but I am guessing we will be sometime in the late 1940s into the following decade and a bit.

That said there will be an expert on London buses who will be able to offer up chapter and verse on the date this one plied its route.

As to the pub, here too I am out of my comfort zone and a trawl of my limited London directories has yet to turn up any information.

Still, I am pleased to say it is still there today and is part of the Green King chain which manages many of the pubs I have researched and written about.

There will be those who are sniffy about such chains, advancing ever the cause of the independent brewery or landlord.

Which just leaves me to thank Brian,  appeal for more information, and point out before someone does that We Anchor in Hope is actually at 320 Bellgrove Road, Welling, DA16 3 RW

And to add this is  a fine shot of the old road climbing west.

And quick as a flash, Brian having read the story of his picture postcard, added a link to a bit more background.

But as ever I shall not lift someone else's research and instead just point you to the link.**


Location Welling

Picture; Shooters Hill, Welling, Kent, date unknown, from the collection of Brian Norbury

* We Anchor in Hope,  https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs/kent/we-anchor-in-hope/

**We Anchor in Hope, Belle Grove Road, East Wickham, Welling, https://pubwiki.co.uk/KentPubs/EastWickham/AnchorinHope.shtml

It happened here in Chorlton and also in Didsbury .............. National Baby Week .... July 1917

Just a century ago a crowd assembled on the Rec opposite our house on Beech Road and listened to Mrs Jane Redford, Mr Peach and Miss Place of the Manchester & Salford Day Nurseries speak in support of National Baby Week.

The week long campaign aimed to rouse “a universal determination to prevent the unnecessary wastage of infant life, [focusing on] all the causes which make for the high rate of infant mortality. 

According to statistics 80,000 babies under a year old die every year in the United Kingdom of which 50,000 might have been saved.”*

Now this is all the more remarkable when you consider that we were by that summer in to year three of the Great War.

A war which had already caused thousands of causalities and although the organisers did not know it was about to deliver even more as the British army launched the Third Battle of Ypres, commonly known as Passchendaele which would in its three months result in the deaths of 244,897 British and Commonwealth  soldiers.

The celebration began with processions through Chorlton and Didsbury both led by “a band and numbers of green and white banners.”

The Didsbury procession which was "followed by a meeting addressed by Miss Margaret Ashton and Mr C T Needham M P and others included Red Cross nurses and munition workers."

By contrast the Chorlton march was made up entirely of  “small children with a few mothers and big sisters to look after the babies and large crowds turned out to watch.”

Sadly no photographs have come to light and I have no idea what Mrs Jane Redford or the others said in the Rec on that Saturday afternoon.

But Mrs Redford was an important figure both in Chorlton and the City and her personal papers may still be available.

She had been active for over 30 years serving on various public bodies including the Board of Henshaw’s Blind Asylum and as a Poor Law Guardian for the Chorlton Union where she had campaigned for the provision of trained nurses for workhouse hospitals.

And in 1910 after winning a municipal election here in Chorlton, she became not only our first woman councillor but also the second woman elected to Manchester City Council.

And she spoke on the Rec opposite our house which really was a bit of history which happened here.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Pictures; the Rec circa 1910 from the Lloyd Collection and Mrs Redford, date unknown courtesy of Lawrence Beedle

*Baby Week Opening of the Campaign in Manchester, Manchester Guardian July 2 1917

Who moved that bus stop? …………. and other challenges to my memory ….Didsbury …. 1967

It started with a conversation with my friend Barbarella about the lost shops of Didsbury, and in particular, the stretch from M&S to the Santander Bank.

I casually mentioned the photo shop close to the bank and then doubt set in as to whether it had been there back in the 1970s, when I waited for a bus, or indeed if it was still there a few decades later.

Now, I know there is one there today, but thought it might have moved from where I remembered it.
 So as you do I checked out the site on street google and while there is a photo shop, there is no bus stop, and there hangs my dilemma, because for years I stood at that bus stop and would often give up on the bus and go in and buy some film.

These were the decades when I still used smelly film, developing them and printing them at home, along with a sideline in colour slides, which with trial and error led me to prefer Agfar film.

But as so often happens the absence of that bus stop led me to question my memory.

And then  Barbarella restored my memory with “Now it’s opposite the Coop and the next one just passed Saints and Scholars”, which was confirmed almost immediately afterwards when I came across another picture from 1967.

There was the bus stop, and more importantly there was the camera shop, complete with Agfa sign.

I did then go looking at the bus routes on the destination board, which even I thought points to me really needing to get out more, but if you want to give the full flavor of Didsbury in the 1960s, you must dig deep.

That said my guide to bus routes for 1969, shows that none of the three services were running by then, which make me wonder if there was a second bus stop with more services and which of the three went into town, and which headed towards Barlow Moor.

Someone will know, and they may also be prompted to share their memories, sparked perhaps by the picture of Wilmslow Road in 1969.

We shall see.

Location; Didsbury

Picture; Wilmslow Road, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY