Two hundred and thirty-nine Salford listed buildings …… and two pictures

 There are two hundred and thirty-nine Salford listed buildings, and they range from two 16th century ones, a heap from the 19th century and those three totem sculptures from 1966.*

Kersal Cell, circa 1950s

I toyed with writing about all of them, but it’s been done and anyway as a Londoner who has lived in Manchester for 57 years, I bet there will be a few from Salford who think me presumptuous.

So instead, I will focus on just one which I came to via Derrick Lea who in the 1950s and 60s drew pictures of many iconic Greater Manchester buildings.

And amongst the collection was this one of Kersal Cell. It was granted Grade: ll* status in 1952 and is described as “of special architectural or historic interest”.

To which Historic England adds that it was a “Manor house, later restaurant. C16 with later additions. Timber-framed with plaster infill on a sandstone base. Concluding “the house stands on the site of Lenton Priory, a C12 Cluniac house. It was the home of John Byrom, shorthand writer, and author of 'Christians Awake’". **

There is more from my trusty Wikipedia which tells me "Kersal Priory, also known as St Leonard's, is a priory in Kersal. It is classed as an alien priory or hermitage and was populated by Cluniac monks. The priory was dependent on Lenton in Nottinghamshire. Founded between 1145 and 1453, it was granted title by Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester sometime after 1143, became denizen independent from 1392, and was dissolved in 1538. One of the buildings, Kersal Cell, is still extant; a Grade II* listed building, it is now a private residence".**

I make no apologies for lifting the information from other sources and fall back on that well known justification which runs, “using one source is copying, using more is research".

Bridgewater Canal, Worsley

Added to which the historical background is merely to give context to Mr. Lea’s picture.

And having done that I will add his equally excellent drawing of the Bridgewater Canal and Worsley Old Hall leaving you to do your own research on both and discover the equally interesting Worsley Hall Icehouse, which to confuse matters belonged to the new Hall but does also have a grade II listing.

Leaving me just to say that I am a great fan of Derrick Lea’s work which extends to his wartime years with the RAF in Arica as well scenes of staff and patients from three Manchester hospitals.

He was born in 1920, lived in Chorlton and drew much of the twin cities and the places beyond.

Location; Kersal and Worsley

Pictures; Kersal Cell, and Bridgewater Canal and Worsley Old Hall, courtesy of Jon and Hazel Lea

* Salford Listed Buildings, Salford City Council, https://www.salford.gov.uk/planning-building-and-regeneration/conservation-and-listed-buildings/salfords-heritage-assets/listed-buildings/ 

**Kersal Cell, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1386144

***Kersal Priory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kersal_Priory

Till & Kennedy's on Cavendish Street ........... or if you prefer Mr Righton's Drapery Emporium and the Student's Union

Now this is one or those buildings which will mean many things to many people.

Righton's Buildings in 2015

For some it will be the old show rooms and for me and some of my generation Manchester Polytechnic’s first proper Student Union.

Before then the three colleges pretty much did their own thing with their own bars.

The College of Commerce on Aytoun Street where I went was known for some pretty spectacular Saturday nights with big bands, the Art College may have done the same but I doubt that much happened down at John Dalton

Detail including Mr Righton's name, 2015

All of which is outrageously  biased but fits with someone who wasn’t even aware of the other two sites until sometime in late 1970 almost a year after I begun at the “college of knowledge.”

Nor can I be fully sure when the Till Kennedy Building opened for pints, bands and much more.

One source has it throwing back its doors in 1969, before which it had been Till & Kennedy’s the ironmongers.

Righton's in 1958

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”*

Righton's in 2015

It had a short life as a student’s union and has been used by various faculties of the Poly and the MMU.

I remember visiting it to look at the collection of taped memories of life in Manchester in the first half of the last century but as much as I tried my mind wandered to disco nights and of a particularly magic evening with Osibisa.

Added to which there were those endless student general meetings where our own version of politics was played, all of which was I suspect a long way from Mr Righton’s bolt of blue cloth or Till and Kennedy’s taps and assorted iron ware.

Pictures; the Righton Building, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson and in 1958, H.W.Beaumont, m19060, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

Well Hall in the 1920s nu 1 ........... catching the train and watching out for the cows

A short occasional series on Well Hall in the 1920s.

Now I washed up in Eltham in the spring of 1964 and for two and half years made the daily  train journey back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys School which continued until I switched to Crown Woods.

I didn’t like Samuel Pepys over much and the trip from Well Hall to New Cross and back was pretty much the best bit of the day.

Even now I have fond memories of seeing the woods above out house come into view ast thetrain took that final bend and came into the station.

The trains were always packed but there was something about knowing you were coming home to Well Hall.

And I suspect Mr Jefferson may have shared that feeling, so here are some of his memories of the same station just 40 or so years before I used the station.

They are taken from the book he published in 1970.

“The railway station was called simply ‘Well Hall’ when we came and the platforms were not so long as they are now.  

A workman’s ticket cost 8d return to London and early workers making their way past the tumbledown ‘Well Hall’ which is now the Pleasaunce would frequently be hindered by cows coming up hawthorn-hedged Kidbrooke Lane and turning in at the wide gate in Well Hall Road.”*

Location; Well Hall

Picture; the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 page 202

Snaps of Chorlton No 2 Beech Road, 1935 King George V’s Jubilee

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Beech Road, 1935

Today we are on Beech Road during the Jubilee of King George V.  I cannot be exact but it will have been between May 6th and May 12th.

It was taken by Marjorie’s sister sometime in the afternoon.

Despite its’ lack of clarity there is enough here to give us a flavour of Beech Road in the 1930s.

To our immediate left is the wall in front of Row House and the adjoining building which by 1929 was the Grange Laundry.  And beyond on the corner of Acres Road was William Allen the iron monger’s who has dropped his canopy to shield the shop from the bright spring sunshine and like all the shop keepers of the period has some at least of his wares on display outside.

It is a fine May day and the bright sunshine has brought out the people, even so there is enough of a breeze to lift the flag and bunting.

And I suppose the thing that most marks this off from today is the absence of cars.  There well away up Beech Road at the corner of Chequers Road is the only one.

What also makes the picture just that little bit more priceless is that the young girl in the foreground is Marjorie.

Picture; Beech Road, 1935, from the collection of Marjorie Holmes

Longford Hall … The Parsonage and that Didsbury pub ….. three pictures from that remarkable artist Derrick Lea ….. and their stories

I have become a great fan of the artist Derrick Lea who during the 1950s and into the 60s drew and painted many of our iconic buildings across Manchester.

Longford Hall and Park circa 1950s

And given that he lived in Chorlton it is not surprising that some of his work records places around the Township.  

But he also produced images of Manchester, and its suburbs.

All of which is an introduction to three in the collection from Stretford and Didsbury.

The first is Longford Hall which was in the grounds of Longford Park and was commissioned by John Rylands that extremely wealthy industrialist whose commercial interests were global and who was a prime financial backer of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Alas the hall was demolished in 1995, having been acquired by Stretford Council in 1911 and used variously as accommodation for Belgian refugees, a Red Cross hospital, a museum and art gallery.  Added to which in 1977 it hosted the only Royal garden party to be held outside London.

And if that were not enough of a claim to fame it stood on the site of Longford House which at one point was inhabited by Thomas Walker that distinguished 18th century businessman who was the boroughreeve of Manchester, prominent in the campaign to abolish the Slave Trade, and supported the French Revolution which resulted in him being wrongfully  accused of sedition.

Like most people I assumed that Mr. Walker’s house had been torn down to make way for Longford Hall in 1857, but a paper in the bulletin of the John Rylands Library  by Richard Bond argues for a later date.*

It is a compelling argument and along the way offers much detail about the Hall and the architect Philip Nunn.

The Old Parsonage, circa 1950s

Now I know from Mr. Lea’s son that the family lived close to the hall and visited it regularly with Jon telling me that  “we used to go there with Dad for milk shakes, and in cold weather it was hot Vimto.”

In contrast to the grand home of John Rylands Derrick Lea was at home with more modest buildings like The Old Parsonage in Didsbury which he drew sometime in the 1950s.

It is “a Grade II listed building, next to the original village green of Didsbury. The building and gardens were left to the citizens of Manchester by Alderman Fletcher Moss in 1919. The Didsbury Parsonage Trust has provided a thriving community hub for the people of Didsbury and beyond, in a significant and picturesque setting. This historic and much-loved building has been lovingly restored, and the Trust aims to preserve it for future generations”.**

Added to which it is set in a fine and lovingly kept garden with views across to the parish church.

Ye Old Cock, circa 1950s

And after a spell in the gardens there is the Old Cock which I would like to think Mr. Lea could have visited after taking in the Parsonage which backs onto the pub.

It was a place we escaped to during my time on a post grad course at Didsbury College over half a century ago.  At the time and looking back now there was no competition between a couple of pints and an hour and bit listening to a lecture on the Philosophy of Education.

The pub looks old and in 1825 hosted a three day Wakes event which the Stockport Advertiser reported  included “ass-racing for purses of gold, playing and grinning through collars of ale [as well] bag racing for hats; foot racing for sums of money; maiden plates for ladies under twenty years of age for gown pieces and shawls, treacle -loaf eating, wheel barrow racing and bell-racing with balls each evening”.***

I have to say I bet that event would have made a fine picture for Mr. Lea.

Leaving me just to mention  Juliette Tomlinson and her debut novel, "Longford", which charts the lives of John Rylands and his third wife, Enriqueta 

It is the first of a trilogy which will span the decades from 1864 into the twentieth century and on the way offers up glimpses into the lives of the two, set against provincial France and Manchester, with of course sideways looks at Longford Hall, Stretford and other bits of south Manchester.

The second novel called Sunnyside is due out in April of 2026.

Location; Stretford, and Didsbury

Pictures; Longford Hall, The Parsonage and the Old Cock, circa 1950s, courtesy of Jon and Hazel Lea

 *Bond, Richard, Longford Hall Revisited: A New Building Date, and an Architect, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol 100, No. 1 Spring, Manchester University Press  

**Didsbury Parsonage Charity https://www.didsburyparsonagetrust.org.uk/

***Didsbury Wakes, Stockport Advertiser, August 5th, 1825

When torture came with a plastic rain mac …… memories of the 1950s

My Pakamac was ideal for summer showers. 

 "Lewis’s say … Take a cape, circa 1950s

But they were a cruel invention. Despite being light and flexible enough to be squeezed into a small bag they smelt awful and were a nightmare to wear.

It didn’t take long before the warmth of the body trapped in a sheet of clinging plastic made you sweat and the more you walked the hotter and more uncomfortable you became. Which meant you had a choice, wear it and suffer or take it off, get wet and suffer later when my grandmother discovered that this act of rebellion had got me soaked.

"Light and in four colours"

They were a product of the Plastic Age when heaps of things made of traditional materials were junked in favour of light bright products, from cups, plates, cutlery to the Pakamac.

I had all but forgotten this cheap protection from the rain, but in the collection of the Chorlton artist, Derrick Lea I came across this advert.

I have no idea why he included it in his pictures and paintings but perhaps like me he wasn’t a fan.

Nor I think I am alone.  Anyone born in the middle decades of the last century, who remembers watching Ivanhoe on a tiny black and white TV, and who was allowed to roam free at weekends and holidays with no demand to check in will at some point have endured a variation of the Pakamac.

True they were less cumbersome than those belted gaberdine raincoats, but they were no less a chore to carry and got in the way of climbing trees.

Unless of course you had bought one of those surplus army canvas bags which could store all manner of treasures, from a bottle of lemonade to a half-eaten bread roll.

Mine was army green had once been an ammunition bag and cost just one shilling. They were the “must to have” item in 1958 and at a push would take the mac, if you hadn’t already discarded it in full knowledge that mother would not be best pleased.

And that is it.

Location; wet days in the 1950s

Picture; "Lewis’s say … Take a cape, circa 1950s, courtesy of John and Hazel Lea" 

A 1930s cinema and a church from Woolwich, more walks in Well Hall

From Kidbrook Lane to the Well Hall roundabout

Continuing a walk through Eltham in the footsteps of Darrell Sprurgeon.  

This is part two of the guided walk in Well Hall taken from Discover Eltham by Mr Spurgeon.

We left the walk at the Tudor Barn and today have wandered up to the Well Hall roundabout.

In the thirteen years the Guide book was republished the changes at this end of Well Hall have continued a pace, and so the description of the cinema is as much a piece of history as the story of Well Hall House.

The Well Hall Odeon

The Former Coronet Cinema, 70, 

The former Odeon cinema of 1936 designed by Andrew Mather has some interesting art deco features – note- the projecting glass staircase tower and the central canopy over the entrance.  

The interior of the foyer is also circular, with a wooden ticket booth and the word Odeon in green and red mosaic set in the floor.  

Unfortunately, the cinema has closed and it may be difficult to find a future use for the building.

Church of St Barnabus, 71, Rochester Way.  A Victorian Gothic church in red brick, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. It was originally built in 1859 as the chapel of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Woolwich; it was dismantled and re-erected, brick by brick, on this site in 1933.  

The exterior is rather stark, with a bold apse, quirky turret and many lancet windows, along the side are four gables, each covering twin lancets.

The Well Hall Odeon

The interior was transformed by Thomas Ford in 1957 after war damage.  

It is light and spacious with a wagon roof and large flowering mural by Hans  Feibusch on the apse ceiling; but is very strange (‘sickly wedding cake’ Pevsner) with 16 angels perched on the beams above the column in the square arcades.  

Note the anthemium motifs in the arcades.  The Stations of the Cross are of some interest, by Stan Boundy circa 1994.  

The vicarage next door is a striking red brick house with a graceful ground floor bow.  Adjacent ids the church hall, of 1938, renamed the Frankie Howerd Community Centre in 1988.

Next, the Progress Estate.

Pictures; courtesy of Eltham, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eltham/210661675617589?fref=ts

* Discover Eltham and its Environ, Darrell Spurgeon, Greenwich Guide Books, 2nd edition 2000