An almost familiar scene of Mount Street in the heart of the city ........ just 89 years ago

Now here is a picture of the city which is at once both familiar but not familiar.

Mount Street, 1937

We are on Mount Street with Central Ref and the Town Hall Extension to our right and Central Street on the left.

So far so good, but the tram and the much darkened walls of the old Town Hall places us at a time long before now.

Given that the Town Hall extension was started in 1934, completed in 1938 and opened a year later, the date for our scene must be the mid to late 1930s.

But I can get closer because the painting comes from the book Manchester Heart of the Industrial North which I know was published in 1937.

And that will places us on Mount Street no later than 1937 and I suspect no earlier than 1936.

I first came across the book on the recommendation of my friend Angela and having looked through the book decided I had to go looking for it.

Fortunately I came across a copy at a reasonable price and that is that.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Mount Street, circa 1937, from Manchester Heart of the Industrial North, 1937

Memories of that other Thames ……

 I don’t know if cargo ships still berth along my bit of the River at Greenwich.

But someone will know, and I hope will tell me.

I left London in 1969 and while I still came home for holidays my visits to this bit of where I grew up became less and less.

But back in the late 1970s I did wander the water with a camera and recorded what I saw.

To some they will be dismal, and grimy but they were my part of London.

What strikes me about the berthed ship is how deep the inside compared to the men.

It’s a silly observation given that the hold had to store heaps of things, but it reminds me of just how different the Thames at Greenwich was five decades ago.

The image is one that sat as a collection of negatives in our cellar for 40 odd years, and only recently has come out of the shadows as I digitalize those pictures.

And Peter from Greenwich added "Good evening Andrew, I always enjoy your pictures of the grimy industrial part of my hometown. 

The coaster on the mud at Lovells was one of the first of a type designed with elevating wheelhouses and masts ets to work upstream on the Rhine and other European rivers. The depth of the hold would have probably been around 4 metres".

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; waiting to load, the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

On finding Mr. Howarth's bottle with the galloping horse ...... on Cheltenham Road

 Now here is a mystery which involves a bottle, George Howard of Thornburn Street and our own Cheltenham Road.

Yesterday David posted the bottle on social media asking for help identifying the company who sold it, adding, “This was found next to the foundations of my house in Cheltenham Road CCH. Marked 'HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester.' Pictorial is a fast galloping horse with rider. Anyone know what it was?”

And never wanting to miss out on a mystery, I went looking for HOWARD'S Thorburn St Upper Brook St Manchester, and it all got a tad twisty.  

I couldn’t find a Howard at Thornburn Street in the early 20th century.  There was a John Spelman there listed as a mineral water manufacturer.

However George Howard “herb beer brewer (Howard Brothers)” was listed at 4 Sagar Street  in Lower Broughton from 1895 through to the early 20th century.  So perhaps they moved to Thornburn Street after 1911.

The houses  on Cheltenham Road date from 1927, and it is possible that sometime after that date the bottle was buried, lost or just thrown away, by which time George Howard had moved from Salford.

There was a George Howard who was in Hulme at the beginning of the 20th century and had brothers, and gave his occupation as a “Teasman” in 1916 at his marriage.

It is just possible that George made the short jump from a Teasman to a brewer of herbal beer.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the bottle, 2021, courtesy of David Strong.

Going to the Art Gallery in Piccadilly Gardens in 1929 ........ the one we never got

Now what do you do with a big hole in the ground in the centre of Manchester?

Today of course it would be sold for development and pretty soon a tall less than elegant tower would fill the spot “offering a mix of commercial and residential opportunities for our times.”

But not so in the early decades of the last century when the Corporation decided to do something bold and innovative with the hole that was the Manchester Infirmary and is now Piccadilly Gardens.

There were plenty of suggestions including plans for an art gallery these never happened.

I must admit I never followed up on the art gallery project so I was pleased when my friend Neil Simpson sent me a picture of the proposed new gallery along with a description from How Manchester is Managed which were issued yearly by the City Council and described what they did.

The books are a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the history of the City.   I plundered them back in the early 1970s but had since pretty much forgotten about them.

So Neil’s discovery reunited me with an old set of friends and in the 1935 edition was this article on the new proposed art gallery.

The Corporation was well aware that “the space available in the Central Gallery had become overcrowded and great difficulty was experienced in finding accommodation for displaying the treasures to advantage,”*

And so having purchased the old Infirmary site in 1918 the “City Council concurred in the views expressed by the Art Gallery Committee that the site was the best place for the New Gallery.”

In 1925 after an open competition had been launched the design by Mr. E. Berry Webber was selected.  He was “29 years old, has designed a building which in all essentials admirably fulfil its functions as a Gallery and Museum of Applied Art and will at the same time , be a building in which the public can see what is to be seen easily and methodically. “

It was to be a building “in which clarity of design is essential [and one which] with its simple and dignified elevation and its freedom from irrelevant ornament will look what it is namely a, a place for the exhibition and study of Art.”

But it never happened.

The financial crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression meant that on grounds of economy the City Council took the decision in 1931 to defer its construction for five years.

Picture; the proposed new Art Gallery, 1935 from How Manchester is Managed, Manchester City Council, 1935, page 73

*How Manchester is Managed, Manchester City Council, 1935, pages 72-73

The lost building on Barlow Moor Road ……….

No matter how much you uncover about the story of Chorlton, there is always something new.

1927

So, a while ago Kelsey Broome sent me a photograph of the old Royal Oak on Barlow Moor Road, which I had never seen before.

The pub dates from the early 19th century and was demolished sometime in the 1920s for the Royal Oak we know today.

This much I knew, but had never been able to pin down exactly when this happened.

I had always thought it must be in the late 1920s, and after a tour of the upstairs began to think it might have crossed over into the next decade.

But as so often happens a new bit of the jigsaw falls into place, which in this case was delivered by Bill Sumner, who provided me with this aerial picture of the new Royal Oak, with the magic date of 1927, which narrows down its construction.

1907

More so because there had been efforts during the early 20th century to get permission to replace the old pub with a new one.

But Bill’s picture just threw up another mystery which is the large building to right of the pub, behind the bank.

It is a substantial building, which is absent from the OS map of 1907, and has disappeared by 1952.

At present the only clue might be a reference in 1911 to a Frank Johnson at 21a Barlow Moor Road, who was a furniture dealer.

But that is it, and I will have to wait till I can get into Central Ref and look through the directories for the period from 1911 through to 1952 which might just of up some answers.

That said someone might know.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road, 1927, Britain from the Air, EPWO, 17618, detail from the OS map of Manchester, 1907

The ship …….. a lighter …. and the River

Now I am the first to admit as pictures go these might not be the ones to enter for “The most exciting picture of the century”, but they are over 40 years old and come from a time when the Thames was still a working river.

I had wandered down to Greenwich looking for the old food factory where I had worked at the beginning of the 1970s.

It was called Glenvilles and was close the Tunnel, and along the way I decided to record whatever took my interest.

Just exactly where along the water I was I can’t now remember, but in the second image there are the silos of what I think were Tunnel Refineries, which after the passage of four decades  is as close as you will get to a location

Happily I am sure someone will correct me, citing the exact spot and adding heaps more detail.

Well we shall see.

And here is the reminder that we should all record the place, date and a bit of background information each time we go out with a camera.

Leaving me just to say that before anyone sneers at the quality of the images, they were taken when I was just beginning to develop and print my own photographs, using smelly photography and the negatives have sat in the cellar for 40 years.

Location; The River

Picture; The ship …….. a barge …. and the River, circa 1978/79 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking with history …….. Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

It is one of the obvious observations that some of the simplest of dishes remain both fun to make and above all are totally delicious.

Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

So, it is with Bucatini Cacio e Pepe which combines my favourite pasta with cheese and pepper.

I have been making a variation for over forty years mixing pasta with olive oil, grated pecorino cheese and heaps of black pepper.

Our kids all grew up with it and will still opt for it as an alternative to chilli and garlic pasta.

But I had never tried the equally simple and quick Bucatini Cacio e Pepe.  

One source records that it originates with Italian shepherds who wanted something quick to make while out in the fields and originates in the region of Lazio.

And it is quick, only requiring you to cook the pasta mix it  to a bowl of grated pecorino and add a quantity of the pasta water which forms the sauce and then finish off with as much black pepper as you want.  

Three ingredients made in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

That said maybe I didn’t use enough cheese because the sauce was not as gooey as I suspect it should have been, but it was a first attempt.  

On the other hand, I might just revert to the even simpler pasta, olive oil, cheese and pepper.

The dish will be centuries old and reflects that basic peasant cooking which does the best with the minimum.

Ingredients for Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

And that will also explain Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, or Spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli.

Now my Silver Spoon Cookbook says I should just fry the garlic and chillies in some olive oil and add the spaghetti by pulling the pasta out with a fork rather than draining it which keeps the pasta moist and just softens the dish.*

As a variation I prefer using linguini and throw in just enough tomato sauce to add a bit of extra colour. 

At which point purists will sniffily point out that I have wandered into making Spaghetti All’ Amatriciana, which blends my chilli, garlic and tomato mix with diced pancetta, which is close, but as a vegetarian would never include meat.

A variation on Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

But then this Neapolitan dish like all peasant meals will change slightly depending on what ingredients are available and on the preferences of the cook.

So, with that in mind tomorrow I may look at what exists in the cupboard and the fridge to ring the changes on these two basic friends.

Location; our kitchen

Pictures; wot I cooked, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *The Silver Spoon, 2005, 2000 Italian recipes