The lost grocery shop on London Road ........ 1960

Now, for me, these images perfectly capture  that time when I was growing up.

And I suspect it will be the same for many others who were also born n the late 1940s, and for whom these pictures  will chime in with their memories of a changing Britain.

There were the empty bombsites, the drab tired looking buildings, and plenty of horse drawn vehicles.

But many of those bombsites were car parks catering for the growth in car ownership, new and exciting consumer products were becoming available at affordable prices, and above all there was a sense of optimism about the future.

So, here we are, on the corner of London Road and Buxton Street with the grocery store of P. Prole, where the promise of the future was edging out the past.

At first glance, the shop front could quite easily pass for one from the turn of the century.  

The tiles, the signage and the metal fitments look dated, but the poster in the window extolling the power of Stergene “To wash away the shadow of nylon” is accompanied with that elegant looking woman wearing the height of fashion.

While just a few doors down, the empty site has become a secondhand car business, where a 1956 Vauxhall Cresta is on offer for £475, making the Black Bentley look decidedly ancient.  

And for those who like period detail, the Cresta is advertised with a “heater” and the Bentley has been given new tyres, leaving just the odd shaped Morris van lurking in the background.

But despite the signs of modernity, the buildings and the area have seen their best.  

The upstairs floors of the shop have long been abandoned, the glass in some of the windows needs replacing, while the roof and gutters look in a sorry state.

Just when it and its neighbours were demolished I have yet to discover, but demolished they were.

The space it inhabited was replaced by what was one a telecom building and is now a hotel.

You can still walk along Buxton Street, but alas access to it is now via a car ramp which passes under the hotel, and the site of P. Prole’s grocery store is marked by a locked  hotel door.

Location; London Road, Manchester

Picture; The shop with a story, J Prole’s grocery store, corner of London Road and Buxton Street, 1960,Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Living on our Meadows ...... stories from the Brownhill family

We are on the meadows, when people still worked and lived there.

Now everyone knows about the sewage works which were first established here in the 1870s, continued well into the last century.

Less well known perhaps is that two families of those who worked on the plant lived close by, and their houses stood by what is now the footbridge over the Brook.

The rest as they say belongs to Catherine Brownhill who sent over these pictures and the accompanying story.

“Hi Andrew, Malcolm (my husband) lived at No. 1 Cottage, Withington Sewage Works. Hughie  and Lily Edwards lived next door. Lily was 90 last October and Malcolm & his brother went to visit her. 

He has taken some pictures of photographs from her album. 

Over the next few days I’ll send them to you with as much info as I can. This picture is likely Lily and a friend at the Sewage Works. Ivygreen Road houses are in the background. The 2 cottages would be to the right of this picture. The tree is still there today.

This is the same tree with the ‘cottages’ in the picture. They were sturdy brick built semi-detached houses. 

Malcolm’s Dad, Jack Brownhill can be seen bowling in a game of cricket. 

The cottages were at the end of the cobbled road just where the bridge is. 

Below are the four Brownhill children. Jack and Irene were their parents. 

Over the years Irene worked in the laundry on Crossland Road and in three chip shops, on the Green and Beech Road. She attended the school on the Green. 

Pictured are Jeanette, Malcolm, Graham and Ray with the air gun.

The last one for today. 

These buildings were in front of the cottages and to the left and the buildings behind housed the engine room and various sheds. 

Back to the photo, where the car/van is this was a barn where straw was stored for the sheep in the fields and chickens were kept in one of the rooms to the right. Malc’s Dad had a Morris Minor and all the lads would take turns to drive it, Malc could only just see above the steering wheel. 

It was chopped up at the end of its life and was put over the bank of the brook. 

Bits of it may still be there, though we think that when the banks were reinforced in recent years the motor debris may have been cleared. This would have been to the left of where the bridge is now”.

Location; the Meadows

Pictures; living on the Meadows, circa 1950s-60s, from the Brownhill Collection

Wishing you were here ........... Eltham in the past nu 3 the old vicarage 1833

The caption says "The Old Vicarage as seen from what is now Sherrard Road.  In the distance the Church. 

On the right the old Chequers Inn. 

Date 1833.  The shops on the immediate right are still in existence.”

And that is pretty much all you will get today, except to say that “today” was 1909 and back in 1833 Sherrard Road where it joins Eltham Hill was the start of Well Hall Lane, but that is another story, for another time.

Picture; the old vicarage, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

That house beside Malton Avenue that everyone remembers

Now this is one of those buildings with a history and almost everyone you talk to will remember it as everything from a doctor’s to a cafe and to an office.

It is on the corner of Barlow Moor Road and Malton Avenue and was built sometime after 1910 when the area was redeveloped.

It had once been part of the estate of the Holt family whose extensive garden ran from the corner of Beech Road along Barlow Moor Road down High Lane almost to Cross Road and then across back to Beech Road.

When the last of the family died in 1908 their large house was demolished, the trees along the eastern side of the garden were cut down and the Corporation used a stretch to build the tram terminus while the rest became houses, shops and the Palais de Luxe cinema.*

Sadly until now I had not come across much more about the place, and then out of the blue Douglas wrote to me asking about the cinema.  He “lived in the detached house right next to the cinema, on the corner of Malton Avenue and Barlow Moor Road, no 477, so the cinema wall formed one side of our garden. I went to the Burnage High School for Boys and also the Wilbraham School of Music in High Lane.”**

And all of a sudden the building was given a new lease of life as a place which was a home.

Now in the fullness of time I hope that Douglas will share more memories of number 477, the cinema and life on Barlow Moor Road in the 1940s

*A forgotten photograph, ............ the Palais de Luxe in 1928
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/forgotten-photograph-palais-de-luxe-in.html 
from the series Chorlton cinemas, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20cinemas

**Douglas Cook, www.whitedownmusic.co.uk
Picture; 477/483 Barlow Moor Road, 1959, A.H.Downes, m17516, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Bold new plans for four Manchester Squares ………..

It’s just one of those age things that if you can remember cars in St Ann’s Square, you will have had plenty of birthdays.

Today, you can take your pick from a pleasant amble across the square, take in the market stalls which are a frequent feature, or just sit and watch everyone else going about their business.

Just over 40 years ago much of the square was given over to cars, lorries and coaches, and while the pavements were wide this was still a place where you had to be mindful of parked and passing traffic.

There had been moves to pedestrianize the square, and introduce open air cafes in 1962.

But the plans were shelved because of concerns that “congestion would be caused on Market Street and St Mary’s Gate if the square was closed to traffic”.* Four years later the Civic Trust of the North West which had advanced the original plan, tried again with a “New Plan for main squares”.

This proposed “new pedestrian area in four main squares in Manchester,  [suggesting] extra traffic restrictions, so that a new pedestrian route could wind through part of the central shopping area”.

The scheme would have involved changes in St Peter’s Square, Albert Square, St James Square and St Ann’s Square.

In St Peter’s Square, the Cenotaph and cross could be moved and re positioned directly in front of Central Ref, while in Albert Square, the Albert Memorial would “remain in its present place, but other statues would be moved slightly and the lavatories in the square would be removed”.

 A pedestrian route would run from Brazenose Street to connect with St Ann’s Square which would see the church “sit in a pedestrian area as it was originally intended and the whole atmosphere of the square would be changed by the removal of the clutter of cars and parked vehicles and the continuous discordant effect of the traffic slowly meandering through the Square”. 

 Leaving the pavements to be widened on St James Square and “parts of South King Street and King Street would be closed to normal traffic [and] opened only for part of the day for service traffic”.

 

All of which looked a bold plan, but would be a long time coming.

King Street was pedestrianized in1976, and St Ann’s Square in the early 1980s, leaving St Peter’s Square to be transformed in part by the coming of the Metro in the 1990s and fully transformed by the Second City Crossing, which resulted in an enlarged square, the loss of the Peace Garden and the removal of the Cenotaph to a spot outside the entrance to the Town Hall.

And for those wondering where St James Square can be found, it is the narrow street which connects John Dalton Street with South King Street.

With the passage of time it is difficult now to remember  that there was a time when you had to dodge cars.

 Location; Manchester

Picture; St Ann’s Square,2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1960, 1960 – 3107.3, 3107.4, 3107.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

 *Manchester shelves plan for St Ann’s Square, Manchester Guardian, December 1962.

 **New Plan for main squares, Manchester Guardian, August 17^th, 1966.

 

As others saw us, Eltham in 1831

Now whenever I want to get a sense of somewhere in England in the 19th century I turn to Samuel Lewis’s Topographical dictionaries.

Eltham Hill, from an engraving, 1778

First published in 1831 it  provided a description of all English localities as they existed at the time of first publication.

It showed exactly where a particular civil parish was located in relation to the nearest town or towns, the barony, county, and province in which it was situated, its principal landowners, and the diocese in which it was situated.

It also and this was new, named the Catholic district in which the parish was located along with  the names of corresponding Catholic parishes.

There were six subsequent editions, the last of which (1848-9) was in four volumes and an atlas.

“The village [of Eltham] is irregularly built, but contains many handsome houses, and the environs abound with noble mansions and elegant seats; Shooter’s hill so name from its having been anciently used for the practise of archery, and on which a singular triangular tower has been erected, by his lady, to the memory of Sir William Daines, Bart., is celebrated for the beauty of its situation and the extent and variety of its prospects; on its summit has been erected one of the telegraphs communicating between London and Dover.

The parish is within the jurisdiction of the court of requests held weekly at Greenwich, under an act passed in the 47th of George III [1808] for the recovery of debts not exceeding £5.

The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Rochester, rated in the books at £3.2.6., endowed with £400 royal bounty, and in the patronage of Sir Gregory Page Turner, Bart.

The church is dedicated to St John the Baptist, is a plain edifice, with a spire.

On the summit of a hill south by east from the town, are the remains of a Roman camp.

Dr William Sherard the celebrated botanist resided here in the early 18th and cultivated a botanical garden.”*

And for those who want to read more the volumes are available on line

*A Topographical Dictionary of England, Samuel Lewis, Vol 2 1831

Picture; A view near Eltham in Kent, printed in London by R.Sayer & J.Bennett, December 1778, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Mornings at Manchester Jewish Museum …..

The Manchester Jewish Museum* is one of my favourite places and has been since it opened in 1984 and is a place I regularly write about.**

Almost soon after that opening I signed up to be a “Friend” and while the scheme has changed its name, I remain happy to support its work which as it says is “a registered charity (charity no. 1154353) and accredited museum (no. 179). 

We connect Jewish stories to the world and to our society, in order to explore both our differences and similarities, and to celebrate that which makes people unique and that which connects us all.

As well as preserving and presenting the history of Jewish Manchester, our programme helps us bring communities together to understand and share experiences. 

Delivering meaningful and sustainable engagement projects with our diverse communities. [which it does through] “schools activities educating future generations about Jewish history and traditions”.

All of which is done in the “Grade II* Listed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, which holds a fascinating collection documenting Manchester’s rich and diverse Jewish heritage.

And that is how I first came across the Museum in the 1980s when I was researching and delivering history courses on Jewish Manchester to school students.

Back then the museum was very helpful in lending material I could use.

More recently following a £6 million redevelopment the museum now has a new purpose built gallery to display our collection, which is presented  in three themes, Journeys, Communities and Identities.

All the stories told on gallery are Jewish but by framing them within these universal themes they hopefully feel relevant to all of our audiences, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Our Journeys Gallery tells the story of the different motivations that brought Jewish people to Manchester: looking for opportunity, escaping hardship, poverty or persecution, and ‘landsleit’ – the move to join existing communities that reflect your own identity. 

From 18th Century pedlars to 20th Century refugees and Holocaust Survivors, the collection reflects each wave of Jewish migration into Manchester.

Our Journeys Gallery also includes a newly commissioned 4-screen immersive film produced by Heritage Interactive and directed by Dan Lusby. Heritage Interactive produced all the digital creative content in our gallery including this film, our sliding digital panels on our organisations wall, and the Jewish identity tablets in our Identities Gallery”. 

The museum hosts a whole variety of events from cultural to comic, along special exhibitions and has an interesting policy towards those who live in the area which encourages local residents to become “one of our Museum M8s and get free admission to the museum all year round for you and your family”.

I took a trip up from Chorlton last week and was not disappointed.

Location; Manchester Jewish Museum, Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; Thursday at the museum, 2026 & 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Jewish Museum, https://www.manchesterjewishmuseum.com/

**Manchester Jewish Museum, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Manchester%20Jewish%20Museum