Down at West Point in 1911 before the Seymour Hotel ........ looking for the story of Jonathan Brown .... gardener and expert orchid grower

Now the Seymour has passed into history and soon memories will fade that this was the last pub before the long dry walk along Upper Chorlton Road to Brooks Bar and the Whalley Hotel

West Point, 1911

That said you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could remember when this grand old place was a private residence.

And now only history books will offer up its time as the hone of Samuel Gratrix who called his house West Point at the junction of Manchester Road, Seymour Grove and Upper Chorlton Road.

All of which l was reminded of when Jonathan Brown set me off on a hunt for his grandfather who was the gardener for Mr Gratrix.

Jonathan came across a reference to the both men in an article from The Orchid World published in 1911.*

He grandfather was living in the lodge with his wife Betsy. They had been married for less than a year and in 1914 Mrs Brown had a son. Their home vanished long before I knew the Seymour and l haven’t found a picture of the lodge.  But it had five rooms and was situated on the south side of Mr Gratrix's big property.

Samuel Gratrix, curca 1911

Locating the Brown's in 1911 was easy enough and the story then made its way to Rawtenstall where Jonathan had been born in 1883.

Just eight years later and his mother was a widow bringing up six children and working as a charwoman.

Her husband had been a teacher and while it is unclear yet when he died it will have to be after 1886 when their last child was born.

In time l will track Mrs Brown who had been born in Norfolk in 1855 which made her just 36 when she was bringing up her children.

All of which was new to Jonathan who an hour earlier knew nothing of his paternal father's family before 1914.

And the final twist was the 1871 census which not only revealed that his great grandfather was a pupil teacher but that his great great grandfather farmed 35 acres outside Rawtenstall and had been born at the beginning of the 19th century in Colne.

That might seem a long way from West Point in 1911 so I shall finish with an extract from The Orchid World which having praised Mrs Gratrix for “looking after the wants of these delicate and youthful Orchids” turned to Mr Brown “who has charge also of the 17 acres of grounds and] shows fully his capabilities as an experts Orchid grower, and the many rare and beautiful plants which he is entrusted should act as a great incentive to his ever willing desire to still further improve their good qualities.”*

West Point, 1894

I think Mr Brown would be pretty pleased with that.

Not that he stayed at West Point.

At some time he moved on eventually landing up in Huddersfield where the family settled and along the way set up a business, although Jonathan told me his grandfather was for moving on but his son put his foot down and Yorkshire became home.

And that is about it for now but I remain fascinated at how chance connections open up a whole new set of stories.

So for me apart from making a new acquaintance I have found a picture of West Point before it became the Seymour, discovered that its grounds extended to 17 acres and learnt a little about one of our gardeners and residents.

Location; West Point

Pictures; West Point, Whalley Range and Mr Samuel Gratrix from The Orchid World, Vol 1 nu 1910-1911, from the collection of Jonathan Brown, and West Point from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Orchid World, Vol 1 nu 1910-1911, pages 154-8

Walking back in time through Eltham, Charlton and Greenwich with the pictures of Llwyd Roberts

Now anyone with an interest in Eltham’s history will have come across the pictures of Mr Llwyd Roberts. *

They first appeared in the Kentish Times in the 1920s and 30s have reappeared in collections since and regularly pop up accompanying  descriptions of Eltham in the past.

My own collection comes from a book published by the Kentish Times in 1966 which was sent to me by Margaret Copeland Gain whose husband like me is an Eltham exile and like me derived great pleasure from Mr Llwyd Roberts’s work.

He was a fine artist and draughtsman and some at least of the pictures will have been drawn from firsthand knowledge while others were inspired by watercolours, drawings and photographs.

What I didn’t know but should have done was that his work extended to other parts of south east London and for that I have to thank Tricia Lesley who came across a catalogue for an exhibition of his “Watercolours and Drawings of Places in the Borough of Greenwich.” from 1976.**

Included in the catalogue are places I never knew existed and which have long gone.

Of these I was drawn to Morton’s Theatre which Mr Roberts’s drew in 1934 and Charlton Village sometime around 1870..

And as you do I went looking for the story of the theatre and found it at that wonderful site dedicated to the music hall and theatre history.***

So I will leave you to follow the link and instead just say that the catalogue lists 168 of his pictures which along with another 58 can be viewed by appointment at Greenwich Heritage Centre.****

Now the Centre is one of those places which if I lived locally I would never be away from, because along with Mr Roberts’s pictures it has an extensive collection of material covering the history of the area.

And as I know next to nothing about Charlton where our Ian grew up I might well look up the background to the picture of the village.

I am not sure when it was drawn but it is based on a source dating from the 1870s.

Pictures; Morton’s Theatre, 1934, Greenwich High Road, and Charlton village circa 1870s, from Watercolours and Drawings of Places in the Borough of Greenwich, 1977

*Llwyd Roberts, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Llwyd%20Roberts

** Watercolours and Drawings of Places in the Borough of Greenwich, Llwyd Roberts, Woodlands Art Gallery, December 1976-January 1977.

*** The Prince of Wales Theatre, Greenwich, arthurlloyd, co.uk http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Greenwich.htm

****Greenwich Heritage Centre, heritage.centre@rght.org.uk

Looking out from Barlow Moor Road in the summer of 1960

There is a singular lack of images of Chorlton during the middle decades of the last century.

Look through the collections and you can find plenty of fine examples of what the township looked like during late 1800s and early 1900s.

Most are from commercial photographers who sold their work on to picture postcard companies, and never missing an opportunity also took plenty of photographs of individual streets, which they then offered up to residents for “a knockdown price”.

But by the 1950s the golden age of picture postcards was drawing to a close, just as cameras became cheaper and more readily available, which ushered in “the snap”.

The snap was usually a very personal image, sometimes a little out of focus and in most cases consigned to a photo album, or the back of a cupboard.

Sometimes the odd one gained pride of place on a fridge or notice board, only to fade with the years and become “tired” from much passing around.

All of which brings me to a set of sketches made by my friend Ann of the Chorlton she knew back in the 1960s.

Ann grew up on Barlow Moor Road at what is now 523 , and as part of various art projects she sketched some of the rooms in the house as well as view out across the back garden.

And include three of Chestnut Avenue, which were made in the summer of 1960 and included “The first house on the right which was an Opticians, when I lived at 523”.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chestnut Avenue, August 1960, from the collection of Ann Love

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ......... nu 56 the vanished fourteen and the story of the BBC

The lost streets in 1894

There will still be plenty of people who remember the close network of streets and houses that stretched back from Oxford Road to the Medlock, and from Charles Street down to Great Street.

In all there were fourteen streets and countless houses which were all swept away so that the BBC could have a new broadcasting centre here in Manchester.

The lost streets included Pritchard Street, Hesketh, Leigh and Saville Streets and along with the houses there had been a school and a pub.

Planning permission had been granted in 1968 and after a hiccup building began in 1971 was finished in 1975 and the place was home to the BBC until 2011.

The closed building, 2011

And for those wanting to impress a companion, about 800 staff worked there and with the opening of the second studio in 1981 the BBC closed Broadcasting House in Piccadilly which had been there for 52 years.

And now after Broadcasting House has gone the developers, and builders are back.

In the meantime I wonder how many memories of those that lived in that small area can be shared.

Afterall the buildings only began to be cleared in 1968.

The cleared ground, 2014

Location; Manchester







Pictures; BBC New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, 2011, Andrew Bowden, Wikipedia, and remaining images courtesy of Andy Robertson, 2014,  and map of the area in 1894, from the OS of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

The Welsh Marches .... a bit of history to listen to ..... today on the wireless

 Now this is one I listened to and enjoyed.

And of course learned a lot.   It's the latests from Radio 4's In Our Time

"At the Hay Festival, Misha Glenny and guests discuss the impact of the Norman invasion on the people and land of Wales and across the modern border with England in what became known as The Welsh Marches, march being a term for a militarized borderland. 

Hay was one of the first Marcher lordships. Even before 1066, William the Conqueror knew that he would have to subdue the Welsh if he were to control the English and he allowed more and more Norman warlords to establish virtually their own private kingdoms in these Marches. 

Later some of the Lords were to use these bases to invade Ireland rather than conquer the rest of Wales. Marcher Lords built numerous castles such as the one at Hay and many new towns would then grow up alongside these where there was one law for the English and another for the Welsh and, though the Acts of Union under the Tudors brought an end to much of the Marcher Lords' powers, the distinct identity of these Welsh Marches continued.

With Rhun Emlyn, Lecturer in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University, Helen Fulton

Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol, and Huw Pryce, Emeritus Professor of Welsh History at Bangor University

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Location; BBC Radio 4

Picture; walking with the woods, RHS Bridgewater, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Welsh Marches, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wt1v

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 4 St Anne's Alley

Now St Ann’s Alley is one of those little walk throughs that it is easy to miss.

Added to which it is not one that I often venture down.

In my case if I am on Police Street I am on my way to Waterstone’s from King Street and likewise if I have come out of St Anns’ Square the quickest way back is past the church and through the alley without wandering down that narrow space.

But having come across this picture I began to wonder about St Ann’s Alley.  It shows up on Casson and Berry’s 1751 map of Manchester and so has been offering up a short cut to Mancunians for centuries.

And after the first few of the new series Antony suggested "Lizard Street, Scotland (and it is just called Scotland), Trumpet Street, Balloon Street, Four Yards and Echo Street," while
Carole Ann Brown offered up "Tassel Alley, off Albert Square." 


Location; St Ann’s Alley, off Police Street, Manchester

Picture; St Ann’s Alley, off Police Street, 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Scenes from a lost Chorlton, Claude Road in 1964

Now the old petrol pump stood at the point where Claude Road does a right turn before meeting Reynard Road and running off into the Ville.

For almost all the time I have lived here the space just beyond the pump was waste ground but sometime before 1933 a row of buildings stood on the plot.

Now this I know because they appear on the OS map for 1933-34 as large block stretching east to west with smaller units to the rear.

But I don’t know what they were and until I can look at the directories or rate books for the period I have no idea.

By the 1960s part of the plot was occupied by a garage which can be seen in Ann’s picture.

And that is all I know, but someone will come back with more so I shall just leave it at that for now.

Except to say that these little bits of empty land were all over Chorlton well into the 1980s.

Picture; © Ann Love