Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 95 Royton Street ...

 You won’t find Royton Street.

Spinningfields, 2020

It vanished long ago under the Spinneyfields development but for a century and more it lay between Hardman Street and Cumberland Street.

Not that you would have found it that easily, because it was one of those closed streets shut off by two narrow passages which gave off to more closed courts.  The curious or those in the know could access it by one of two streets which ran between Hardman and Cumberland Streets of which only one had been given a name.

Royton Street, 1849

To add to its obscurity, it failed to get into any of the street directories during the 19th century, but it did boast the St Mary’s Roman Catholic Chapel School.

But in 1851 it was home to 399 people who lived in 39 houses, nine of which were one roomed back-to-back properties, and the remainder, consisted of four rooms with weekly rents ranging from 1 shilling [5p] to 5s [25p].

Their occupations included textile workers, laboures, retired soldiers, a sailor, a French polisher and an architect’s assistant.  Added to these there were a number of skilled artisans including a group of “shoe makers” a tailor, a “Gold Beater” and “Cabinet maker”.

The east side of Royton Street, circa 1880-1900

During the course of the 19th century some of houses were replaced by industrial units, including two steam printers and a paper warehouse, so that by 1951, the western side of the street had been swallowed up by another printing press and all the houses along the entire length of the street had gone.

I can’t be sure when Royton Street was cut, but the first reference to it in the Rate Books is 1828, although there is a suggestion that it might have already been there by 1819.

It has yet to pass out of living memory and I am sure I will have known it, but with the passage of over 53 years these narrow streets off the beaten track were places you found by accident and didn’t always return to.

Today the closest I think the inquisitive will get to walking its length will be along the Avenue which runs down from Deansgate, past Spinningfields Square finishing in front of Manchester Crown Court.

The Avenue, 2020

On a pleasant day the shops, bars and restaurants which flank the Avenue on both sides attract plenty of passersby but perhaps not as many as the developers expected.  

Still the swish retail outlets and the swanky eating places are a long way from the Royton Street of the 1850s.

But I am drawn to that earlier place, partly because of the wealth of information about its inhabitants which shed light on how we lived 170 years ago in this part of the city, but also because there is a personal link.  

It is not me, but a Facebook friend whose family were on Royton Street from at least 1851 for two decades, and continued to live in the area up into the middle of the last century.

Royton Street, 1951

Alan Jennings who introduced me to his ancestors has written a vivid account of their lives, and in particular those who served during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars through to the Great War, and Alan’s own service with the Colours.

Now that is the story of personal history I like.

Location; Manchester

Pictures;  Hardman Street, and the Avenue, 2020, from  the collection of Andrew Simpson and Royton Street in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1844-49, and Royton Street circa 1880-1900 from Goad's Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/and Royton Street 1951, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford

That club on Brookburn Road in Chorlton ....... and a fascinating find

This is the United Services Club on Brookburn Road, just thirty years after it was opened in 1928.

The club in 1958

I have to confess to only ever being inside once, for the birthday of Muriel who ran the greengrocer’s shop on Beech Road, but that as they say is another story.

Instead I am following the story of the club, prompted by a set of documents sent over to me by Steve Casson which include the first two balance sheets of the club from 1928.

The then secretary was the brother of Steve’s grandfather which makes it a bit of personal history.

The club was officially opened on Saturday May 26th, by Councillor Burrows, and had cost £685 and according to a press story was “equipped as a library, with provision for billiards and other games, and a license is attached.

The present membership is 111, [and] it is to be a non-political club, .... and one of its objects is to aid wives and dependents of members in cases of hardship.  The hon. Secretary is Mr. H. Gales, late of the Grenadier Guards”.*

The same report offers an interesting insight into Chorlton at the time, with Councillor Burrows commenting that “Chorlton was the largest ward of any in the municipality in the country, and it had the biggest ratable value of any suburban area under the Manchester Corporation”.

The balance sheet, 1929

And to add just a little bit of colour to the event “The Chorlton Band played selections on the green, before the opening ceremony, and later, in the club, and an evening concert followed”.

Now, I never actually spotted when the club closed, and saw the slow development of the site into residential properties, which are now going through more change.

There will be people with stories of the club, but apart from the two balance sheets, so far the only other story is that of how in 1936 various members were fined for “supplying drink during non-permitted hours”, but in their defence it was pointed out that “the club had been registered for eight years and hitherto had been conducted without complaint against it.”**

Looking at the two statements, what is interesting is that on the first one dated January to December 1928, the bar takings were £1069, compared with the following year when the takings were £2439, so all was well in 1929.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; United Servicemen’s Club, 1958, R.E. Stanley, m17686, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, balance sheet for the British Legion, 1929, courtesy of Steve Casson


*British Legion Club for Chorlton, May 28th, 1928, Manchester Guardian

**Offences at a Club, January 16th, 1936, Manchester Guardian

Discovering Eltham

Cover of the new edition 2000

I am back in Eltham where I grew up in the 1960s on the Progress Estate.

They say you should never go back to the places of your childhood and there is something in that.

Either they look smaller and are just that bit different or whole landscapes have so altered that you begin to question if your memory is serving you well.

Now my bit of Well Hall looks much the same but they have moved the station built a motorway and many of my favourite haunts in the High Street have changed.

All of which is a lead in to Discover Eltham by Darrell Sprugeon.*

It is a “comprehensive guide to Eltham, New Eltham, Mottingham, Kidbrooke and Shooters Hill.”  So it pretty much covers everywhere I went as a child and certainly everywhere I would want to take my own grown children who while they are all Mancunians have a soft spot for where dad lived.

Mr Spurgeon sets out to offer his reader a mix of history, and places to see which are all wrapped up in a series of walks “but only where places of interest are concentrated within an area which makes walking practicable and interesting.”

Tudor Barn, Well Hall, 16th century

So “beside the famous buildings of royal Eltham, the area covered includes Wren’ great almshouse of Morden College, the extraordinary Sevendroog Castle, set amongst the ancient woodland of Shooters Hill, the Tudor remains of Well Hall, many interesting Victorian churches and two striking churches of the 1930s, two remarkable housing estates of the 20th century; sites of industrial archaeology, interesting pubs; many of which remain rural in character, and much more.”

And there is much I didn’t know. So despite living close to the church of St Barnabas on Rochester Way, I had no idea that this red brick Victorian church was originally the chapel of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Woolwich.  It was “built in 1859 and dismantled and re-erected brick by brick on its present site in 1933.”

Nor did I know of the existence of three streams which flow through Kidbrook and feed into  the Quaggy River.  Of course the clue is in the name Kidbrook, which is clearly derived from the Upper, Mid and Lower Kidbrooks.

Now water courses are a particular interest of mine.  Most today are buried underground all but forgotten but they were vital to our rural communities providing water and acting as boundary markers.

Progress Estate, Ross Way, 1915

I have to own up that it is the Eltham walks which fascinate me most.

And here there is plenty to read and see because Mr Spurgeon includes a selection of photographs along with the text and maps.

The first edition came out in 1992 and a second much revised eight years later.  I have both in front of me.  

The earlier version I bought on Amazon and the later one has come courtesy of the author.

And as a historian what I finds particularly interesting are the changes to the area in that eight years. All of which makes the book a fascinating chronicle of how Eltham has developed.

I rather think that I shall take both with me on some of the walks, thereby getting an insight into the Eltham of 1992, 2000 and of course today.

Pictures; courtesy of Darrell Spurgeon

 *Spurgeon, Darrell, Discover Eltham and its Environ, Greenwich Guide Books, 1992, revised and updated  2000

When you make cheap comments about James Fraser ….

So earlier today I was a tad unfair to James Fraser, former Bishop of Manchester.

James Fraser, former Bishop of Manchester, 2026

His statue stands on the northern side of Albert Square hard by the water fountain looking out on Princess Street just yards from where Cross Street enters the square.

From his lofty position he has observed plenty of the changes to the area including the construction of the Second City Crossing which takes trams from St Peter’s Square down to Exchange Square and onto Victoria.

Perhaps happily he also faces outwards and so has never looked down on the several make overs to Albert Square and its eight long years as a construction site during the Town Hall’s refurbishment.

 But as that draws to its conclusion the square is home again to the Manchester Markets, and the Manchester Wheel, and that is where I have been unfair to James Fraser because yesterday, I posted an image of the bishop apparently standing,  aloof from all those seasonal preparations.

Making it worse with the caption “James Fraser turns his back on fun”.

James Fraser with his back turned, 2026

It was cheap and suggested that perhaps he was a party pooper.  Now I have no idea if he was a man devoid of humour, but a little research has thrown up that he was a deeply caring individual who applied his religious conviction in very practical ways.

My Wikipedia tells me he “was a reforming Anglican bishop ….. An able Church administrator and policy leader was active in developing the Church's approach to education and in practical politics and industrial relations. Though his views were ecumenical and he was respected within a wide variety of religions”. *

So much so that he was remembered as the "bishop of all denominations”.

I could go on but that Wikipedia article does it all too well and includes his work on child labour in agriculture, his wider work on education, industrial relations, and commitment to the co-operative movement as well as his defence of a fellow clergy man who fell foul of the establishment.

Moreover, I was intrigued by the comment from the Bishop Fraser Trust, that he “was a figure defined by service, humility, and a deep commitment to the people he served. Appointed in 1870, he quickly earned widespread respect by rejecting the comfort of a traditional bishop’s residence and choosing instead to live in the city centre, close to the community". **

The x marks the former  residence of James Fraser, 1894

And that led me to search out his residence, which in 1881 was at 177 Bury New Road in Broughton. 

His home was a terraced house, close to an Engraving Works a several brickworks and within walking distance of rows of more modest homes.

That said his neighbours in 1881 listed their occupations as merchants, accountants, solicitors, and doctors, as well as a surgeon and an Inspector of Mines.

So, perhaps his afternoon conversations over the garden wall were not with labourers, road sweepers, and washerwomen, but nor was he living in a palace or in the leafy green out suburbs.

And that is where I shall leave it along with an apology for using him in such a cheap and trivial way.

Location; Albert Square

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026 and the former residence of Bishop Fraser, from the OS map of  South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*James Fraser, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fraser_(bishop)

** Bishop Fraser Trust, https://www.tbft.uk/about-us/welcome-from-the-ceo

36 barrels of gunpowder ..... that horrendous act .... and a noisy night of fireworks

Now there is a pernicious and pervasive way of thinking which looks for conspiracy everywhere.

Mutterings and secret plans, 1604

As a way of looking at the world it isn’t new, and can be traced back to those who wile away the wasted hours seeking to disprove that there ever was a moon landing, to the sinister Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was a fabricated antisemitic text, and runs back into the mists of time.

All that is needed is an event which someone will seek to deny, or bend to their own political purposes.

And we are all familiar with the assertion that the Covid virus was not real, but when challenged with the evidence, advocates often switch tack and argue that it is in the interests of “them” to manufacture the scare, thereby to increase the powers of State surveillance, or manipulate the international markets.

Attempting to refute them is like counting the grains of sand in a bucket or pushing water up hill.

More recently I have followed the line of that radical 18th century writer Thomas Paine who wrote “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, ….. is like administering medicine to the dead”.  

It a powerful guide to how to treat the outlandish arguments of those who have travelled beyond the borders of reason and reminds me of Deborah Lipstadt’s often referenced explanation for why she doesn’t debate with Holocaust Deniers because it is as pointless as discussing with “flat-Earthers or the Elvis-is-alive people”.*

All of that said there is a fine line between conspiracy theories and reinterpretations of past events. **

And as this is November 5th it neatly leads into the failed Gunpowder Plot, that awful act of planned terrorism which was so horrendous that its failure continues to be celebrated every year since Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators were caught and executed.

In recent years the celebrations have been eclipsed by Halloween, so while the fireworks will burst on either side of November 5th and continue like a damp squib for perhaps a week few kids now take to the street asking for “a penny for the Guy” and heaps will not even know the historical significance of burning the guy and setting off fireworks.

Plotting the unthinkable 1604

Suffice to say the story goes that a group of “Catholic gentlemen” in the face of continued official hostility to Catholics chose to stage a coup by blowing up the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament on November 5th.  

If it had succeeded the entire political establishment would have been killed, the State left leaderless and in the vacuum the plotters would have placed the King’s daughter on the throne and manipulated her to run the country.

So far so good, but it failed. 

The ringleaders were captured, tried, and executed and things got a lot worse for Catholics.

But even at the time some questioned elements of the plot, citing the King’s chief advisor as implicated in a “set up”.

Conspiracies and disasters, 1970s

In the 1890s and since some historians have revisited the story, deconstructed the events and the evidence, discrediting the official version.

All of which offered some of us a fine set of history lessons where we presented the traditional account, offered up suspected flaws and led our year 8 history students to draw their own conclusions.

In 1996 the historian Antonia Fraser presented her interpretation which while it accepted that there was a plot challenged bits of the narrative. ***

And over the next few days I shall revisit her book, reading it as the last fireworks burst into the night and reflect that while there are and have always been real conspiracies, the default line of many is to see conspiracies where they don’t exist, and trade on assertions and half-truths.

Pictures; a contemporary drawing of the Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, Crispijn van de Passe the Elder, and a popular badge from the 1970s

Guy Fawkes, Catesby and Winter, 1604

*Thomas Paine US History, https://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-05.htm

**“administering medicine to the dead” ……. The American War of Independence ..... and Thomas Paine, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/11/administering-medicine-to-dead-american.html

*** The Gunpowder Plot, Terror & Faith in 1605, Antonia Fraser, 1996

So ……… who pinched the tennis courts by the Lloyd’s Hotel?

Now, everyone knows that the Lloyds has a bowling green, which will date from soon after the hotel was built in the late 1860s.

The Lloyds, 1970

Thomas Ellwood, our own historian writing in 1886 said that along with the bowling green there “is a bowling club which meets every Wednesday during the season”.

Adding “recently a lawn tennis club has also been started”.

This I suspect had something to do with Mrs. Crabtree who ran the pub in the 1880s and by all accounts “improved the place considerably in various particulars” and it may have been her who encouraged the bowling green members to build their own club house and as an enterprising woman with an eye for business also laid out a lawn tennis court on the open land along side Whitelow Road.

The growing population brought in by the housing boom centred along the Edge Lane/Wilbraham Road corridor and around what until recently was the “Four Banks” stimulated a growth in both cultural and sporting groups, and Mrs. Crabtree’s tennis courts may have played to that interest.

The Lloyds in 1894

But none of the maps dating from the 1880s onwards show the presence of those tennis courts, and while the same maps do not indicate other courts which were in place by the late 19th century and survived into the1900s, it suggests that ours did not last long.

Certainly, by the mid 20th century the site had become a car park, and so the mystery remains.

And a mystery not helped by the lack of any reference to the tennis courts in the rate books.

Mrs. Ada Crabtree is there as the tenant of the pub from 1884to1887, followed by Richard Crawshaw, but no tennis green which as an asset should have turned up in the Rate Books.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; The Lloyd Hotel with that public lavatory, 1970, A Dawson, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass the Lloyds in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Ellwood, Thomas, Inns, Chapter 23, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, April 17 1886

The one on the corner of Concert Lane and Spring Gardens …..

I must have passed this building countless times since I washed up in the city in 1969.

Where Spring Gardens meets Concert Lane, 2026

Back in the late 60s as a student at the old College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street I roamed streets exploring.

Concert Lane, 2026

Concert Lane, 2026

Afterall when the choice was the library or exploring, exploring always won out.

So, in a few short months I had got to know the back streets and alleys, a heap of interesting buildings which have long been lost and a collection of historic pubs and seedy cafes.

And yesterday I decided to look up the history of 47 Spring Gardens which occupies a triangular plot where Concert Lane and Spring Gardens run into each other.

Not that Spring Gardens always came this far south.

In the 1850s it stopped at King Street and seems to have been extended down to Chancery Lane by 1888.

All of which means there will be more research to do and along the way I shall delve into that narrow thoroughfare that is Concert Lane.

Location; Spring Gardens

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson