Who took away our bus office? …….

It stood on the corner of Barlow Moor Road and Malton Avenue and had been there from 1914.

Our tram and bus office, circa 1920s-30s

It started as the tram office when according to the Manchester Guardian "The Manchester Tramways Committee have bought a piece of land at the tram terminus in Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, for the purpose of a siding, a veranda and shelter and other convivences"*

And that was what it continued to do well into the 20th century even featuring in a pile of pennies campaign in aid of the Russian Famine Appeal of 1921.**

I doubt it has ever warranted its history being recorded although the blog has gone searching for its story.***

It appears in several photographs and was annually recorded in the street directories until 1969.

Still going as the bus office, 1962

But sometime between then and 1976 it appears to have closed, may have stayed empty for a while and at some point was taken over by the Manchester Diving Group.  I tried calling and emailing the group to ask when they took the site over, but have so far been unsuccessful, but I will try again.

Their site offers up their history but not when they settled in the old tramway office.

I think the end of the office may well have coincided with the reorganization of transport which saw the merger of the corporation bus companies across Greater Manchester into SELNEC in 1969.

My Wikipedia tells me that “SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive, “took over the bus fleets of 11 municipalities, and operationally, the organisation was split into three divisional areas, Northern, Central, and Southern”.****

Now that was a mammoth task and involved the incorporation of the largest bus fleet of Manchester’s 1,500 buses with Ramsbottom’s collection of 12.  

A bus top and former office, 2022

In total there were 2,532 vehicles, and heaps of garages which inevitably led to a series of closures as the Executive sought to rationalise the system.

And I think this may well have been why our office closed.

There will be people who will remember the bus office, and will remember its closure.

Sadly I am not one of them.  It may still have been operational when I washed up in Chorlton in 1976, but I have no memory of it.

So the quest continues to find out just when this happened.

The door to the club, 2022

Answers on a used bus ticket or better still a historic tram ticket and posted to me on facebook, or as a comment.

Location; Chorlton Bus Office, Barlow Moor Road

Picture; the tram office with waiting room, circa 1920s-30s from the Lloyd Collection, Barlow Moor Road, circa 1962 from the collection of George Cieslik, the office 2022, and the door to the Diving Club, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A thank you to Tony Petrie who sourced street directories from 1929-63 and Andy Roberston for 1969.

*Tramway Shelters, Manchester Guardian, March 11th, 1914

**Mrs. Clara Nicholson of Chorlton ……. the mile of pennies ……. and a Disaster Appeal, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/mrs-clara-nicholson-of-chorlton-mile-of.html

***The tram office ...... a mile of pennies ..... and the story of Sport Diving in Chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-tram-office-mile-of-pennies-and.html

****Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Passenger_Transport_Executive

Manchester's first railway station ........... no.1 waiting for something to happen

Now when Ron shared four pictures of the old railway station and warehouse on Liverpool Road, I was transported back nearly four decades.

The station and carriage shed

I visited it just after it had finally closed and British Rail had sold it to the museum.

It was hard at the time to see just how significant were these old run down buildings.

But these were the first passenger railway station and warehouse, having opened in 1830 when a group of Manchester businesses wanted a quick and cheaper way to get their manufactured goods to Liverpool.
Added to which they quickly saw the commercial advantage of using their railway trains to carry paying passengers.

So here in the pictures is the passenger buildings, beyond which is the carriage shed erected the following year.

And as with so much of the 19th century there was a strict division between those of property and wealth who travelled first class and the rest as seen in the provision of a first and second class booking hall and waiting room.

The 1830 warehouse, railway side

And it is worth remembering just how much the new railway company was at the cutting edge of technological change.  Their steam locomotives may have been the future but tickets were still handwritten and first class carriages were essentially stage coaches placed on a set of railway chassis.

In that respect they were looking back as well as forward.  And that was reflected in their choice of warehouse design, which was direct coy of the existing canal warehouses, complete with arches which allowed waggons to be taken into the building.

Inside the 1830 warehouse

But unlike canal boats which can turn effortless, the railway waggons had to be uncoupled placed on a turntable and then turned 90 degrees before being pushed into the warehouse.

Originally these turn tables were all over the site but the last which was beside the Byrom Warehouse was taken away some time in the 1990's.

And tomorrow there will be more on those early warehouses, of which there were three.

The first built in 1830 opposite the railway station and the second two built the following year which stood at right angles.

These were destroyed in a devastating fire.

The surviving buildings have done well to be still with us, although they were pretty much knocked about.

But have now become part  of the museum complex.

Location; Liverpool Road

Pictures; the railway station and first warehouse, built in 1830-31 as they were in the early 1980s from the collection of Ron Stubley

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 6 the White Hart 1930

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 the old White Hart which according to Mr Roberts "the White Hart, picturesque with its weatherboard and partly pantiled roof, was the last(first) house in the High Street on the western side."

Picture; the White Hart, 1930, Llwyd Roberts

When history collides with the kitchen …… the cupboard was bare ..... cooking from home no. 5

The challenge is a simple one.

Take a handful of ingredients from the kitchen and come up with a favourite meal, while at the same time exploring its history. *

To be strictly accurate there were things in the fridge and freezer and a growing pile of tinned food, but essentially, I was pretty much out of fresh food.

And that was because I miscalculated when the woman/man with a van would arrive with the food order.

At which point someone will sniffly comment on the availability of nearby shops but yesterday was a day when I had to stay in and anyway, I like the man with his van.

All of which left falling back on the jar of lentils, an onion, and the last of the baby tomatoes.

So, while the red lentils cooked slowly in a pan of water with the addition of some turmeric, I set to frying the onion, tomatoes and a dollop of tomato puree.

And when the sauce was a lovely golden red colour, I threw in the cooked lentils being careful to save some of the water to add to the mix.

That just left me to decide what next, and because I had some frozen peas they went in to, along with a pinch of chili flakes, and curry powder.  This I know will upset the purists who make their own curry powder but I was missing the dried cumin and coriander.

Later that evening I prepared some rice and the rest was the meal.

My Wikipedia tells me that "Lentils are among the most ancient cultivated foods; they have been found in human settlements dating back to the Bronze Age. Researchers have dated the preparation and cooking of split dal as far back as 800–300 BC".**

And this mix of lentils, and other things when cooked in pretty versatile, so I have added it to cooked mushrooms and used as a filling in home pasties, while our Elizabeth adds it to her soups and both of us will eat it as a main or side dish with a mix of curries, and I am minded to explore using lentils to make some savoury fried snacks.  

We shall see.

Leaving me just to ponder on the history of the boy, the woman or the man with a van.

Deliveries by local tradesmen are as old as the van, and before that the horse and cart or the humble bicycle.

When I was growing up in south east London such deliveries were pretty much limited to the milkman with his horse drawn float but a generation earlier and the streets would have been full of butcher's boys, grocery, green grocery and fish traders.

All making deliveries to even quite humble homes.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026, except the delivery vans on Beech Road circa early 20th century from the Lloyd collection

*When history collides with the kitchen, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/When%20history%20collides%20with%20the%20kitchen

**Dhal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal

Remembering the 1970s at Valentines on Barlow Moor Road

Now the 1970s come in for a fair amount of derision which I am not sure is fair.

It was like any other decade of the 20th century good and bad, happy and sad.

I have a bit of a fond spot for it.  I may have grown up in the “swinging 60s” but it was the following decade when I passed into adulthood, graduated, got a job and got married collecting a mortgage along the way.

So in terms of “rights of passage” I reckon the 70s may well be my decade.

Added to which despite all the fun and new horizons the swinging 60s didn’t always extend to my bit of south east London.

And if you wanted to make a claim for the decade that separated us from the past you might well go for sometime in the middle 1950s, when rationing came finally to an end, the consumer society really took off and there were a shed full of new ideas, styles, and music.

But then again my mum may well have made the same claims for the late 1930s and my dad for the decade before that.

So I shall just reflect on the newspaper advert that set me going.

It was sent to me by Graham Gill and perfectly shows off one side of the 1970s.

Here is the "Exotic Revue 1976" at Valentines on Barlow Moor Road.  “A TASTEFUL MIXTURE OF GIRLS, GLAMOUR , COMEDY with “MAN IN MIND”

And the rest I shall leave for people to read and await the comments and of course I shall also thank Graham whose collection I am in awe of.

Picture; Valentines, 1976 from the collection of Graham Gill

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 5

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 the old Rising Sun which according to Mr Roberts "this old building stood for two centuries on the  site now occupied by the L.E.B. showrooms.  When it was demolished the Rising Sun rose again to the east, on its present site."


Picture; The Rising Sun, 1930, Llwyd Roberts

Didsbury Walks ..... part 1 Parrs Wood

A short series exploring a collection of walks  across Didsbury from east to west, starting at  Parrs Wood.

Parrs Wood House and estate, 1853

Now even the most avid supporter of Parrs Wood might well concede that the junction of Wilmslow Road and Kingsway is a bewildering mix of cluttered signs, busy traffic and a rather ugly box which is the entertainment centre.

But it was not always so. Until almost the beginning of the last century the area was still open land, dominated by an elegant 18^th century house set in a large estate.

This was Parrs Wood House and according to one source the estate changed little from the 1790s through to 1960.

Go back to say the 1820s, and this spot might have seemed very attractive to a casual visitor to Didsbury who took a fancy to stroll along Wilmslow Road from the direction of the parish church with the intention of crossing the river at the Cheadle Bridge.

As now, the road would have taken a sharp turn to the south as it passed Parrs Wood House, but even given the height of the estate wall, she would have had a view of the building and had she then ventured into the grounds, there was more than a few interesting features.

Parrs Wood House, 1970

These included the stables, the kitchen garden, the fruit wall, glass houses and the homes of some of the staff.  And for those fascinated with 18^th century gardens, there was a ha-ha, which consisted of a ditch and wall which acted as a barrier preventing livestock from entering the garden from the estate but gave anyone looking out from the garden the illusion of an unbroken, continuous rolling lawn.

Sadly, it disappeared in 1970, when the ditch was filled with the spoil from nearby building work which resulted in the loss of a colony of lizards who had made their home in the south facing wall.

Location; Parrs Wood

Picture; Parrs Wood, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/   Parrs Wood House, 1970, m21314, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass