Now 523 Barlow Moor Road still stands today although with additions at the rear it has become a property of multi occupancy.
But for most of the 20th century and a bit of the late 19th it was a family home and during the 1940s and 50s it was where my friend Ann grew up.
And as you do I asked her to write about the place, and here, spread over two parts is her account of one house in a Chorlton we have now pretty much lost.
"523, Barlow Moor Road was a large detached house, set back from the road, with a small front garden, planted with deep red rhodedendrums
The house had four floors, which included attics and cellars, each with at least four rooms.
As both my parents worked from home, and I was an only child, this left me plenty of time to explore the house and garden.
At the side of the house was an old conservatory, and there were several old sheds, and stables which my Dad used as a workshop and garage.
On wet days, I would wander round the house, sometimes venturing up to the attic (Quite a scary place) where there were rooms full of interesting things.
One of my Uncles had tried to set up a business repairing bicycles, and there were frames, and wheels hanging on one wall.
The rest of the room was like a laboratory, with jars, bottles and chemicals laid out on benches..
I spent many happy hours mixing powders and liquids, watching things fizz, but as he'd been trying to make cosmetics, nothing exploded.
Another room was full of furniture, trunks full of clothing and clocks, which I would wind up until they no longer worked.
The third room was used to store old paintings and prints that my grandfather had bought at auctions, plus many old urns and other containers full of ashes, which had never been collected.
My father, as was his father before him, was an undertaker. They made all their own coffins from planks of wood, which were stored in the cellar.
When they were needed, Dad and Grandad would carry the wood down the garden to the workshop, where my Dad would cut it to size,and bend the sides to shape, by scoring the wood and steaming it, holding it in place with clamps.
He would then attach the bottom and sides with nails and glue, which he made in a little 'kettle' from horse bones.
When I was small, Grandad would tell me that they made boats, and he and my Dad would carry me up the garden in the coffins.I thought that was great fun.
There was another large workshop in the house, where my Dad would paint a layer of tar on the inside of the joints of the coffin (to prevent leakage) and my mother would then line the coffins with kapok and cheap taffeta."
© Ann Love, 2014
Pictures; the house in the 1950s, and drawings of the interior and exterior from the collection of Ann Love
And as you do I asked her to write about the place, and here, spread over two parts is her account of one house in a Chorlton we have now pretty much lost.
"523, Barlow Moor Road was a large detached house, set back from the road, with a small front garden, planted with deep red rhodedendrums
The house had four floors, which included attics and cellars, each with at least four rooms.
As both my parents worked from home, and I was an only child, this left me plenty of time to explore the house and garden.
On wet days, I would wander round the house, sometimes venturing up to the attic (Quite a scary place) where there were rooms full of interesting things.
One of my Uncles had tried to set up a business repairing bicycles, and there were frames, and wheels hanging on one wall.
The rest of the room was like a laboratory, with jars, bottles and chemicals laid out on benches..
I spent many happy hours mixing powders and liquids, watching things fizz, but as he'd been trying to make cosmetics, nothing exploded.
The third room was used to store old paintings and prints that my grandfather had bought at auctions, plus many old urns and other containers full of ashes, which had never been collected.
My father, as was his father before him, was an undertaker. They made all their own coffins from planks of wood, which were stored in the cellar.
When they were needed, Dad and Grandad would carry the wood down the garden to the workshop, where my Dad would cut it to size,and bend the sides to shape, by scoring the wood and steaming it, holding it in place with clamps.
He would then attach the bottom and sides with nails and glue, which he made in a little 'kettle' from horse bones.
When I was small, Grandad would tell me that they made boats, and he and my Dad would carry me up the garden in the coffins.I thought that was great fun.
There was another large workshop in the house, where my Dad would paint a layer of tar on the inside of the joints of the coffin (to prevent leakage) and my mother would then line the coffins with kapok and cheap taffeta."
© Ann Love, 2014
Pictures; the house in the 1950s, and drawings of the interior and exterior from the collection of Ann Love
