The Art of the 1970’s ….

It’s one of those decades that doesn’t always get a good press.

Floral tea tray, circa 1974

For some it is the time of loons, lava lamps, messy wars in the Far East, and “The Winter of Discontent”.

And maybe that explains the lack of an all defining title.

So, there are “The Swinging Sixties”, "The Roaring Twenties" and “The Gay Nineties” [1890s] to which the Great Depression and the build up to war has framed how we see the 1930s.

But the journalists and pundits with all their superficial and instant descriptive labels don’t seem to have bothered with the 1970s.

Now I am a child of the 60s but it was the following decade that marked out my passage from student to a young married man, with a job and mortgage, and a hot potch of a stereo, with a Pioneer deck, Wharfdale speakers and that iconic Sony receiver with its large single dial set in a wooden tower.

And I retain a fondness for that ten years and like others of my generation I have a soft spot for the ephemera, like this tray.

It was sold by Marks & Spencer’s and we bought ours sometime in 1974.  It travelled with me for the next thirty years from East Manchester out to Ashton-Under-Lyne and to Chorlton, before it finally gave up the ghost.

But it’s bright floral design and heavy yellow and brown colours bring it all back.

I can’t remember how much we paid for it was a lot less than the one I came across in pop boutique on Oldham Street.

Tasteless Chicken soup advert, 1979

At which point I could wax lyrical about the loons I bought from On The Eight Day, the larva lamps in the Pit and Nelson or that Sony receiver which was the only item we lost from a burglary in the 1990s.

But instead I chose that tasteful advert for Chicken Soup seen in Chorlton and a promotional song for Leicester called “It’s a Leicester Fiesta" which has it all.

Location; the 1970s

Picture; the tea tray circa 1974, courtesy of Sue Hampson, and Chicken soup advert, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*It's a Leicester Festival, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNUZIWce3cE

Walking the northern boundary of Rent Meadow in the summer of 1848 …………

Now, it is always fascinating to take a spot you know well, and try and think it back to a time before now.

Looking out towards Chorlton Brook, 2020

So here we are on that footpath that stretches from Barlow Moor Road, down to Nell Lane, with the allotments and park on one side and those roads that run off Sandy Lane on the other.

It is an ancient footpath, and is clearly visible on the OS maps of the mid and late 19th century and shows up in the 1847 tithe map.

The western end ran alongside Lime Bank which was a fine looking house and dates from at least the late 18th century.  At this point the path was more a road, but as it made its way east down to Nell Lane it pretty much petered out becoming quite narrow.

Trees, and bushes, 2020

Walk it today heading towards Barlow Moor Lane, and you get glimpses of the bank of Chorlton Brook, with its dense vegetation and it is easy to think it was always such.

But not so, because back in the 1840s, the land from the path, on either side of the brook and stretching across what we now know as Chorlton Park was fields.

Rent Meadow, [1] and Lime Bank, [3], 1847

The biggest of the two was Rent Meadow which covered 4 acres and was farmed as meadow land.

Its neighbour was Lime Bank, consisting of just 1 acre and was given over to arable farming.

Had you stood on the footpath looking south towards the brook, there would have been a clear view, down to what is now Mauldeth Road West.

But bits of that scene would have been obscures by a belt of trees and bushes which followed the line of the water course.

Beech House, 1853

Both fields belonged to James Holt, who lived in Beech House.

His grounds covered all of the land from Beech Road to High Lane, and down from Barlow Moor Road, almost to Cross Road.

Added to this he owned 17 acres of prime agricultural land in the township.

But his money and that of his family had been made in town in a factory at the bottom of Deansgate, where he made the wooden engraving blocks for calico printing.

Such was his wealth that he also owned a considerable portfolio of properties around St John Street, including the only double fronted house on that street.

As befits a man who had “made it”, he retired early, moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and settled in Beech Cottage which he  redeveloped into a grand property which he renamed Beech House.

The Holt's town house, 2010

His son continued to live in the city centre in St Johns Street, managing the business, and in the fullness of time followed his father and moved into Beech House.

Now, none of this is romantic conjecture, but based on maps of the 19th century, the Rate Books, Tithe schedule and a series of legal documents belonging to the Holt’s.

Together they offer up a detailed picture of the Hot’s business along with the lie of the land by our footpath.

I would love to know who worked Rent Meadow and Lime Bank, but alas that is lost to us.

But there are the odd little glimpses of who might have laboured there.

One such clue, comes in the form of of clay pipes found on the allotments.  It is just possible that they were refuse from night soil spread over the fields which had been bought in from Manchester.

A clay pipe, 2020

But I like to think they may have been discarded by an agricultural labourer on the edge of Rent Meadow sometime in the 19th century.

And as unhistorical as it might seem I would think that the resident of the house known as Lime Bank might have taken a stroll along the footpath on a summer’s evening.  He was a Charles Morton, but more of him another day.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Rent Meadow, 2020, the Holt's town house, 2010, and clay pipe, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1847, from the Tithe map, Beech Cottage in 1841, detail from the OS map of Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 22 .............. Milk Street

Milk Street is one of those streets I never really noticed.  

Milk Street, 2016

It runs from Marble Street to York Street but once started at Phoenix Street.

Today there is little you can say about it.  Its only notable feature is that concrete lattice wall which hides the entrance to an underground car park, otherwise you are faced with the backs of several buildings.

Now if I dig deep enough I might be able to discover the origins of its name which might have something to do with dairies and the practice of keeping cattle in the city centre.

But if so It will predate 1793 when Milk Street was already there.

By 1850 its residents consisted of six businesses ranging from manufacturers, to a paper.

Milk Street, 1849

There were plenty of other properties including two closed courts and at the junction with York Street the Concert Tavern and the Queen’s Theatre.  The latter was swept away in 1901 for the Parr’s Bank.

And that is it.

Location; Manchester



Picture; Milk Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
and in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Photographs from the Royal Herbert during the Great War ............ a unique album of pictures

The Royal Herbert, date unknown

Now the story of the Royal Herbert has just got a lot more exciting and that has a lot to do with a fascinating photograph album from the Great War.

It belongs to my old friend David Harrop who has a unique collection of memorabilia covering both world wars as well as the history of the Post Office.

And today I am looking through it with the hope that some at least of the men and the nurses in the pictures can be traced and their stories uncovered.

Christmas Day, 1915

In time I might even be able to discover the nurse responsible for the album.

A few of the nurses are named and tantalizingly two pictures are captioned “myself” so the search is on which may be made easier as the Red Cross continues to add to its online data base of those who served during the Great War.

And then there are the large number of photographs of soldiers in their “hospital blues” recovering on the wards, a few party scenes and handful from soldiers who had recovered and left the hospital.

Summer, 1916

Together they help reveal a little bit of life in the Royal Herbert during 1915 and 1916.

Given the quality of the cameras and the age of the pictures some images have not fared so well but even the poorest have a story to tell.

One of my favourites is of Sister Thomson and a group of men on a ward on Christmas Day in 1915 along with a much faded image of the garden in the summer of 1916.

Now these albums were quite common but I suspect not that many have survived.

Album cover

David has two more which contain comments, poems and drawings of men recovering from wounds and illnesses.

One remains a mystery but the other comes from a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham and it has been possible to track  some of the men who made a contribution.

Their stories are as varied as I am sure will be the ones from the Herbert and include a young Canadian who survived the war and went home to live a successful and productive life and another who is buried in the military hospital outside Cairo.

And like all good stories led my friend Susan who lives in Canada to tell the story of that young Canadian and in so doing brought his drawing and his words  off the pages of the Cheltenham book and back from the past.

Now that I have to say was both exciting and moving.

The Royal Herbert album is different in that it only has photographs but in looking through it I have made a link with a hospital I knew well and which at one point in the 1970s treated our mother.

All of which makes it that bit special.

David's permanent exhibition can be seen in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery, Manchester and currently features a collection of material commemorating the Manchester Blitz.

Pictures; from the Royal Hebert collection, 1915-16 courtesy of David Harrop

*Blighty, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Blighty

The lost woods of Chorlton …… and a mystery concerning Mrs Lydia Brown and John Holland

We are looking out on John Holland’s Wood which stretched west along Chorlton Brook towards the Bowling Green Inn.

John Holland's Wood, circa 1900, looking towards Brook Farm

Today the footpath to our left is Brookburn Road which once ran east to Barlow Moor Road and west into the village and then out again to eventually cross Turn Moss to Stretford.

John Holland's Wood, formerly the Cliffs, circa 1900

I can’t be sure exactly when it became known as John Holland’s Wood, but John Holland had taken over the family farm in 1865 on the death of his father. 

The Holland family were farming 54 acres around Chorlton from at least 1841 and their holdings were dotted about the township.

These included a strip of land on Row Acre which was the large field running along Beech Road, a stretch on the northern border beyond the Longford Brook and the delightfully named Back of the World which was located where Chorlton Brook joins the Mersey to the south of the stone bridge.

The Cliffs and Brookburn Farm, 1854

Back then, according to the 1854 OS map the stretch we can see in the picture was more heavily wooded, and was known as the Cliffs, which was rented by Lydia Brown who lived at Brook Farm, and farmed across the township, on land which she owned and land she rented from the Lloyd Estate.  

Added to which she owned the smithy on what is now Beech Road, the property used by the wheelwright, Mr. Brownhill on Sandy Lane and a portfolio of cottages.

We even have a snatch of a conversation she had with the journalist Alexander Somerville who came  to Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the summer of 1847 looking for potato blight, the disease which had ravaged Ireland, and was that summer causing concern in Derbyshire.

He stopped at Brook Farm, and reported his conversation with Mrs. Brown who complained about the ash trees which grew around the fields  “which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, and ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.  Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  

Brookburn Farm, circa 1900

Mrs. Brown a widow, is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  But neither herself nor her workmen must ‘crop or lop top’ a single branch from the deleterious ash trees."

And what is exciting is that we know just which fields she was referring to.  These were Rye Field and New Hey which were plots 317 and 318, and ran beside the woods and today form part of Chorltonville.

Despite not yet finding her on the census record I can track her and her husband across the Rate Books from the 1840s through to the mid 1870s.

The woods and Rye Field, 1845

And here is the mystery, because while Lydia Brown lived at Brook Farm which was roughly on the site of Brookburn School, the Holland family are also recorded at a Brook Farm which was according to the tithe record on the bit of Manchester Road which  for a century and a bit was the Conservative Club.

All of which is compounded by the census records which in 1861 place the Holland farm house  on Brookburn Road.

I will leave it to Eric, and who else cares to attempt an explanation, suggesting only that perhaps Lydia had given up farming by 1861, and was happy to live off the rents from her properties, leaving the Holland family to move closer to the woods which took their name.

Sadly, it is no longer possible to recreate the scene and reproduce an image from roughly the same spot.

The trees have vanished under what is part of Chorltonville and a new residential development which was built on the old dairy.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; John Holland’s Wood, and Brook farm from the Lloyd collection and the Cliffs in 1854 from the 1854 OS map of Lancashire showing a section of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and theTithe map of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1845

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ......... nu 56 Reyner Street the one no one goes down

Now strictly speaking there will be a few people who might take a trip down this very narrow street which runs from Princess Street to Charlotte Street but I suspect they will be confined to bin men and the odd curious tourist.

Reyner Street off Princess Street, 1925

It just visible in this 1925 picture between the white building and the back of the Queen's Hotel.

And this street is very narrow.

Today it runs along the back of buildings, but go back a century and a bit and there were plenty of back to back houses which faced on to it.

I looked but couldn’t find a picture of the street in the collection and even that wonderful store of images from Manchester Libraries didn’t seem to have one.

The Queen's Hotel, 1904

So instead I have wandered just to the corner of Portand Street and Princess Street and to this building which backed on to Reyner Street.

It was from the middle of the 19th century a beer shop and later morphed into a full blown pub known variously as the Three Legs of Man and the Queen's Hotel.

And as the Queen’s Hotel it made it into the 20the century offering its gable end to any one of of a number of advertisers.

The billboard from 1904 offers up a mix of products still around today but with some that have long gone along with a notice for the Palace Theatre.

In the fullness of time I will go looking for when the Queen’s pulled its lasts pint and shouted last orders for the final time.

The former Queens's Hotel, 1973

I only remember the building as a newsagents but that sign announcing that it was owned by the Portland Book Shop Ltd intrigues me and I wonder if they were also the owners of that much bigger shop at the top of Oxford Street facing St Peter’s Square which also traded I think traded under the same name.

On a slow day studying in Central Ref it offered a welcome diversion, and for a while it seems to have moved down Oxford Road.

Of course I may have got this bit very wrong and no doubt will be corrected.

All of which just leaves me to reflect that I must have sat in the cafe beside the newsagents on Portland Street at some time in the 1970s.

Not that I even knew that running behind both buildings was Reyner Street which I suppose means that it was as lost to me then as it is to many others.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Portland Street, Princess Street corner, E. G. Phipson, 1925, m04868, T. Baddeley, 1904, m04857, and H. Milligan, 1973, m05349, 
courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

On a wet Thursday night in Plumstead ………………

Plumstead cinemas, 1928

Now I am on a roll, and having explored the cinemas of Eltham and Woolwich, I thought it was only fair to branch out into Plumstead.

Despite our Elizabeth and Jillian living in Plumstead, I rarely visited the place.

My friend Tricia has over the years spoken fondly of going to the Pictures in Plumstead.

So, for her and lots of others, here in the list of which you could go to in 1928, and 1947.

All along time before Tricia was born.

Plumstead cinemas, 1947

Nothing more complicated than that.

Of course some might want to compare and contrast the cinema's, offer up pictures or memories.

All of which would add to the story.

And no sooner had the story gone line than Frances Green posted this, "When the Globe in Plumstead Common Road closed down, my dad bought the cinematograph and lots of reels of silent film. 

We had the best birthday parties when we were little as dad would put on film shows for our friends. The one I remember most was Charlie Chaplin, I think it was called The Little Prospector. 

In the 60s it was on the news that these reels of films could catch fire and mum told dad they had to go. Dad sold them to the BBC and I still remember 2 people coming to collect them. We lived in Macoma Road".

Now that I like.

Location; Plumstead






Pictures; from the Kinematograph Year Books, 1928 & 1947