Amberleigh ... 1953-1997 ........ that prep school on Wilbraham Road

Sometimes you encounter a story which is well beyond your own experiences.

The Oaks, Wilbraham Road, 1929

And so today I plunge into that world of private education and in particular the schools and academies which flourished here in Chorlton in the first half of the last century.

It is something I was never privy to.  I went from one state school to another, effortlessly moving from Edmund Waller Junior school to Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern and Crown Woods Comprehensive to Manchester College of Commerce.  And then after a post grad year at Didsbury Training College, I spent 35 years teaching in inner city schools.

So, mine was a paid education but one funded by local authorities from the public purse.

Mr. Dadley's Grammar School, High Lane, circa 1911

But today I am looking at the private schools of Chorlton which flourished in the years before the Great War continued into the brave new world after 1945 and lasted into the 21st century.

I have written about them in the past, from the Convent school on High Lane to Mr Dadley, whose Grammar School specialized in training for “Law, Medical Accounts, Prelims, University, and Civil Services Exams”.

What they had in common was that they attracted the “middling people” who had moved into Chorlton during the housing boom which had begun in the 1880s and who could afford to enrol their children in these private educational establishments.

In 1911 there were seven in Chorlton, which slowly fell to four in 1929, and three by 1961. **

Of the last three it is Amberleigh Preparatory School at 398 Wilbraham Road which caught my attention today.  It closed in February 1997 and was listed as an “Independent Selective Mixed School for 4-11’s.***

Amberleigh Preparatory School, Wilbraham Road, 1960

The first reference to it is in 1953 in a street directory and in a series of adverts in the Manchester Guardian offering “a course of Evening Classes for children between the ages of 11 and 13 who will be eligible to sit for the local grammar and municipal scholarships in February 1954.  

The course will cover a period of 23 weeks, consisting of 46 lessons each of two hours duration”.****

To this can be added three articles from 1964 and 65, recording the school’s participation in art competitions run by the Manchester Guardian. Under the heading “Enterprise of imagination” the newspaper described the work exhibited by students from Amberleigh in connection with “the Single-handed Transatlantic Race”, and a family’s sailing adventure to Easter Island. ****

The first competition saw five hundred schools enter and the second six hundred, with Amberleigh winning through on both occasions and featuring in the coverage.

Sadly, although some of the students are mentioned by name, no teacher who quite clearly was something of an inspiration is lost to us.

Advert for Amberleigh, 1953

At present that is pretty much it, although there is a Facebook presence from students who share their memories starting in 1955***** and rolling through into the 80s, and a homemade film of a school day outing from the 1970s.******

Just what was taught, the organization of the school day and other stories will I guess come to light as people come forth with their contributions.

Well I hope so.

It now seems quite remote and yet it is well to remember that the Convent school on High Lane lasted into the 1990s and was supersede by the Islamic School for Girls which only vacated the site recently.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Picture; Mr. Dadley’s Grammar School, circa 1911, ,The Oaks College, advert from the St Clements Parish Bazaar Magazine 1928 kindly supplied by Ida Bradshaw, Amberleigh Preparatory School, 1961 m18331,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Mr. Dadley’s Grammar School, circa 1911, from the Lloyd Collection

*Carlton House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Carlton%20House

&

Denbigh Villas ...... the name that was lost and is found, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/denbigh-villas-name-that-was-lost-and.html

**1911 Balgarie, Miss Edith, 19 Whitelow Road, Barker, Miss Agnes, 8 Yerk Road, Booth Miss Ann Shepley, 41 Holland [Zetland] Road, Brotherton, Misses Adelaide & Eva, 23 Manchester Road, Dadley Mr. C 57-59 High Lane, 55 High Lane, Convent High School for Girls, 55 High Lane, Timaeus, Mis Kathleen, 21 York Road

1961 Amberleigh Preparatory School, Mis F. Ashcroft, 398 Wilbraham Road, The Oaks College, Miss A Haigh, 643 Wilbraham Road

***Advert, Manchester Guardian, June 12th, 1953

****Get Information about a school Gov UK, https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/105586

***** Transatlantic Adventure, Guardian, September 17th, 1964 & Easter Island Adventure, Guardian September 22nd 1965

*****Facebook,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/wegrewupinmanchester/posts/3490982651176452/

******School Day out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YcUreTixHo

Osibisa, the old Till & Kenendy Building and a memory

Now for no particular reason I played Woyaya by Osibisa.

Osibisa and Mr. Righton

The LP has sat on the shelf with a shed load of other vinyl which I treasure but seldom play.

And within the time it takes for the music to roll around the room I was back in the 1970s.

It was one of those records that we played late in the night, usually accompanied by the all pervading smell of joss sticks and was pretty much the sound track to a very happy time.

We knew we had grown up a bit, not because we were living in our first house but by the purchase of the sound system which of course following the times was a mix of different bits and pieces.  The speakers were Wharfdales, the record deck was a Pioneer and the tuner was that odd shaped model from Sony with a large dial which took up all of the wooden cabinet.

I have often wondered what our neighbour made of us and the music, but she was always pleasant and made us mince pies at Christmas and so perhaps she too was a fan, despite the fact that she had been born 1900 and had never moved more than half a mile from Raynham Street off Whiteacre Road in Ashton.

And here is the thing, I am still trying to work out whether we heard Osibisa live.  If we did it would have been in the old Till & Kennedy building which by then had become the student’s union of the Manchester Polytechnic.

But even by 1971/2 I think they were successful enough to have regarded a student’s union as small beer.

That said we all know the story of Paul and Linda McCartney with the rest of Wings turning up on a Saturday afternoon offering to play at a student’s bar.

And just a few years earlier the College of Commerce on Aytoun Street had hosted a impressive line up of musicians from Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues and Barclay James harvest, along with Roy Harper, the Edgar Broughton Band and Canned Heat.

So you never know. It maybe I was right and if so I would love the memory confirmed.

Pictures; the Righton Building, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson 

Travelling on LCC tram number 1622 with memories of the Old Kent Road and Well Hall

Now I missed travelling on a tram by just a matter of years, but had I been born a little earlier I might well have been on this one that rattled its way up from the Old Kent Road to Westminster.

And just possibly also taken the 44 and 46 which connected Eltham with Woolwich.

According to family legend I was actually there at New Cross when the last London tram took its last journey in the summer of 1952 but until yesterday I never thought I would come close to one.

Now I know I could visit the London Transport Museum where there is a fine 1910 tram from West Ham Tramways Corporation, but my number 40 which was the one my dad would have used is even closer to home.

It is in the collection of CRICH TRAMWAY VILLAGE just south of Matlock which is no distance for me but I accept is a long way from south east London.

But your loss is our gain and I have planned my visit.

In the meantime I have settled for a picture of LCC number 1622 which plied route 40 from New Cross.

It comes from my old friend Andy Robertson who has been recording the changes to the twin cities of Manchester and Salford and decided to take an afternoon off and visit the museum.

And there is plenty else to see from a Blackpool tram complete with its destination board announcing a Tour of the Illuminations to the Red Lion Hotel which was once in Stoke on Trent and facing demolition was rescued by the museum rebuilt and happily once again serves up a pint.

In his collection of pictures from the day is the sign on a Leeds tram informing passengers that “Spitting is Forbidden” which made sense in an age before antibiotics and the dangers from a range of infectious diseases was all too common.

It is I think Andy's favourite  while for me it will always be the number 40

Which just leaves me to mention Trams in Eltham by John Kennett** and The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins which includes a chapter on that last tram at New Cross.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/

** Trams in Eltham  by John Kennett, Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

*** The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/019.pdf

The not so dusty records of Woolwich ……..

Now for many years those of my friends who share my love of Eltham, Woolwich and Plumstead have sung the praises of the two volumes of “Records of  the Woolwich District”. *

 Down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013

And equally for years I have made a note to buy the two books, but something always came up and I got side-tracked.

But not now, because last month I took the plunge, ordered both and have not regretted it since.

The title may seem dull and off putting, but there is everything here from the Roman Road over Shooters Hill, the Norman invaders who stole Charlton, and more than a bit on the ancient buildings of Eltham, along with a snapshot of the place in 1881.

Added to which there is heaps about Woolwich, so I reckon there is a bit for everyone.

The Book, 2015

And a careful read will reveal how historians like Eltham’s own Mr. Gregory have plundered the records for stories, and I no doubt will join them.

The records were compiled by W.T. Vincent and published in 1890 and owed their existence to years of sifting through the records at several museums.

Plaisted's Wine House, 2013

Of which the highlight was the discovery of a sealed package with the title of “Dockyards of England-Southeast District” which had come out of the collection of George III, including an exact plan of Woolwich in 1748, a plan of “the Foundry from 1715”, plans of the dockyard from 1774 and a plan “of the 2-gun batteries and bomb-battery in 1737”.

And the rest as they are a riveting section in volume one revealing so much about the history of Woolwich with snippets about the other parts of the old borough peppered through volume two to make this a fascinating read, which can be dipped into or be used as the basis for more research.

Leaving me to ponder just where I will start, while reflecting on how popular such histories were at the the end of the 19th century.

My bookshelves are full of books written during the 1880s into the early decades of the the next century.

Some are slightly turgid, but most are extremely interesting, particularly those written about areas which were just decades earlier small rural communities.

Woolwich Free Ferry, 1905

And I suspect that is why they were written. 

Two of my favourite historians admit that they were motivated by a desire to record a way of life which was fast disappearing.

Both included descriptions by men and women who had been born in the early part of the 19th century who in turn drew on memories of conversations with parents and grandparents which went back to the years just after George III lost the American colonies, and in some cases even further back.

I am not sure that Mr. Vincent does this, but his meticulous use of old records make his book one to read.

Location; the old Borough of Woolwich

Pictures, down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick, cover of volume 11, 2015 and the Woolwich Free Ferry, Tuck & Sons, 1905, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*“Records of the Woolwich District”,  W.T .Vincent, 1890, and republished 2015 by FamLoc Books

When only the pubs were left ........

It is pretty true that during many of the urban redevelopment schemes of the 1960s and 70s, it was the pubs which remained long after the homes of their customers had been bulldozed down

Now I have been a great fan of Roger Shelley’s photographs for over a decade, ever since he shared a collection of pictures he took of a group of young lads playing in the near ruin of Hough End Hall nearly 60 years ago.

The attention to detail and his ability to capture the moment are skills I wish I had.

And so, I was very pleased when he posted another group of images he took during the house clearances in Hulme and Moss Side.

The pictures are a mix of street scenes, and the people he encountered, including kids at play, men and women at work and the ever present piles of rubble as the grand plan advanced and centuries old houses disappeared under the impact of the wrecking ball.

Like the work of Shirley Baker* his pictures don’t dwell on sentimentality and don’t make judgments of the wholesale clearances of communities.

They just record what he saw.

And with his permission I will be working my way through the portfolio, fastening on images which tell their own stories.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960s and 70s

Pictures; from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

*Baker, Shirley, Without a Trace, Manchester and Salford in the 1960s, 2018

Voices from Chorlton ……… 179 years ago

In the summer of 1847 Alexander Somerville had come looking for potato blight, that disease which had ravaged the crops of Ireland and had been reported just a little further south in Derbyshire and what he found were a group of farmers and labourers all too happy to show him we were blight free.  

Mr Higginbotham ploughing Row Acre, 1893

Here were many of the people I had come to know, including James Higginbotham, farmer on the green, Lydia Brown whose farm was just a little to the east of the Bowling Green Hotel and old Samuel Nixon, market gardener and landlord of the Greyhound just over the river.

It is a remarkable piece because Somerville reported and in places quoted what they said.  Nothing quite fits you for hearing their voices, talking of farming issues, joking about what newspapers publish and complaining about their landlords.  These are the authentic voices of 179 years ago.

Nor is that quite it.  For when Somerville and Higginbotham inspect the potato field I know where it was. 

Row Acre, Chorlton Row, and the village 1854

It is the strip of land that ran from the Row along what is now the Rec beside Cross Road, and when they stood admiring the Rose of Sharon apple trees and the Newbridge pears we are just behind the Trevor Arms on what is now Beech Road.

It doesn’t take much imagination to recreate that orchard scene with the smell of William Davis’s smithy hard by and perhaps even the noise of the children in the nearby National school on the Green.

Likewise I am pretty sure I can locate the large bank of earth with ash trees which Lydia Brown was so unhappy about and fully understand why she might contemptuously refer to George Lloyd the landlord as Squire Lloyd because of his refusal to allow her to cut the trees back.

Above all it is that calm and steady confidence of the farmer that shines through.

When Mr Somerville came to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1847

Along with Higginbotham’s pleasure that the weather has won out there is the certainty of a life time of experience that allows George Whitelegg to assert that he didn’t believe in blight. Whitelegg ran the Bowling Green Hotel farmed 36 acres and later would go into speculative building.

Mr Higginbotham was 'only afraid that the blight might come.  When it does come it will be time enough to raise the alarm'.

Mr Whitelegg, of Chorlton, told me that 'he was a potato grower, had heard of the blight, had looked for it, could not find it, and did not believe in it'.

Crossing the green meadows I was told at Brook Farm to go down a path under some trees and examine a field; 'for' said the workman who bad me to go, 'it is best for those who want to find the potato disease to look for it themselves and find their own disappointment.'

I told him that I did not want to find it; that I should be well satisfied to find that the blight was not there, to which he replied briefly, 'then, sir you get satisfaction.  The best grown potatoes in this part of the country are in that field, and never since the day that you and were born did the plants look better.'

Looking out towards the green from Mr Higginbotham's farmyard, circa 1880

I found them after close examination to be all that he described them. 

A large bank of earth with ash trees growing upon it – trees which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.

Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  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.

Again I was in the green meadows, where the rain that had newly fallen, and the fresh wind that was blowing, and the luxuriant herbage on every side, and the wild flowers prodigal of bloom, all proclaimed that the insurgents now in rebellion against bountiful Providence must soon be defeated and humiliated.

The bridge Mr Somerville crossed to visit the Greyhound, 1865

At Jackson’s Boat where I crossed the Mersey into Cheshire by the bridge which has superseded the boat, the bridge keeper, Samuel Nixon also publican of the Greyhound,  said 'I have been a farmer all my days and never saw anything that can grow out of land look better.  It is only int paper; they must have something to say in paper.'**

Now that is what I call history.

Location; Chorlton


Pictures;  Ploughing Row Acre before it became the Recreation Ground, 1896  Mr Higginbotham's farmyard, circa 1880s, from the collection of William Higginbotham, detail from the 1854 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the old bridge across the Mersey, circa 1865

*Somerville, Alexander, A Pilgrimage in Search of the Potato Blight, Manchester Examiner, June 19th, 1847

**Chorlton Row, is now Beech Road

**The Greyhound is now Jackson's Boat

More history from Chorlton Book Festival with Brian Groom .... tomorrow

Part of the Chorlton Book Festival 2026 collection

Chorlton Library

Manchester, Greater Manchester

Thursday, September 24   

6 PM - 7 PM

Overview

"Chorlton Book Festival presents

We are so excited to welcome the hugely popular historian Brian Groom back to Chorlton Book Festival!

Acclaimed author and journalist Brian Groom reveals the colourful and often-contested history of the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and others who have occupied these islands, along with their culture, languages and passions.

Packed with surprise and insight, These Isles explores the role of religion, the British Empire, international diasporas and internal migration, gender relations and war in a nuanced and entertaining narrative.

With forays into popular culture, sport, music, language, literature and art, These Isles stretches from 800,000-year-old footprints on a Norfolk beach to the changing fortunes of the early twenty-first century. It offers a uniquely rich and kaleidoscopic vision of the shared stories of people across Britain and Ireland – past and present". 

Chorlton Book Festival, September 17th to September 26th

  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2026-4861494/