A chance find and the beginnings of a story on Wilbraham Road

Now this is a story that has yet to find an ending and in the telling will eventually reveal much about how and why Wilbraham Road follows the course it does.

The three proposed routes crossing close to Red Gates Farm

I have always taken this long road which stretches from Chorlton up to Fallowfield for granted.

After all it was cut in the late 1860s and so is pretty much one of the features of the area.

Our own historian Thomas Ellwood writing in 1885 confined himself to the observation that “it was formed some sixteen years ago by the late Lord Egerton, father of the present earl. It extends from Wilmlsow-road at Fallowfield to Edge-lane, along which a main sewer runs to within a short distance of the railway bridge at Chorlton station.  

From here it passes through the fields to Barlow Moor-lane, adjoin Lane-end, crossing High-lane, Cross-road and Beech-road, thence through various gardens, finally emptying itself into the Chorlton Brook at a point about 200 yards below the bridge which crosses the stream to Jackson’s Boat.”

So as far as Mr Ellwood was concerned the road was less interesting than the sewer which ran beside it.

I on the other hand have long been intrigued by why it was built and the benefits it might have brought to the township.

But other than clocking the date it was cut that was about it, until recently when going through the Egerton Papers in the Archives at Central Ref I came across a map showing the proposed route.

It is dated 1853 and actually shows three possible routes all to the west of the current line.

The description is less than helpful confining itself to just “plan of projected new road from Rusholme to Stretford” and there are no accompanying notes.  Now these may be elsewhere in the papers and so I will have to go off and look.

And until I find those notes I cannot be sure why three routes are shown.  All three are close together.

The first marked in blue would have crossed Martlege just below Red Gate Farm where the Library now stands and the other two coloured in brown and red just a little further to the west and two would have involved crossing Longford Brook.

Martledge, Renshaw;s Buildings now the the Royal Oak

Now why none of these routes was chosen is as yet unclear, there may have been issues with the land especially around the Isles** or it may it may have been because they ran close to Red Gate Farm and crossed Longford Brook.

All of which is one of those little bits of history yet to be uncovered.

That said the map is a wonderful source of information about the outer reaches of the township showing each of the properties and the fields, and natural features either side of the proposed routes.

So along with searching for more on the planned road I will be returning to our 1853 map.

Picture; detail from the plan of projected new road from Rusholme to Stretford, Egerton Papers, M24 /1/15 1853, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history

*Egerton Papers, M24 /1/15

**Ellwood, Thomas, L, Roads and Footpaths, Chapter 6, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, December 12 1885

***this is the area abound Longford Road which was popularly known as the Isles and was dominated bt small lazy little water courses feed ponds and pits which had been dug to extrach clay and marl

Walking through Eltham with Darrell Sprurgeon, ... Well Hall

Returning to the series featuring Discover Eltham.*

I am a great fan of Discover Eltham, so much so that I have two copies, and both are now battered and in need of tender care.

But that is what happens with guide books, if you use them it will show.

Sadly both the 1992 and 2000 editions are out of print and so here are short extracts from the book and the walks you can do.

Well Hall forms section F and is a gentle stroll from the Tudor Barn, up past the Coronet Cinema and the Church of St Barnabus through the Progress Estate and on to The Martyrs Church taking in the memorial to Stephen Lawrence.

Well Hall, 69, an attractive and fascinating building now called the Tudor Barn as well as the moat walls, a bridge and some gardens have survived from the grounds of the Tudor mansion of well Hall: all are now set in a pleasant park.

The state goes back to at least the 13th century.  In the early 16th century a mansion called well Hall was built by the Roper family on the moated site of an earlier house and some medieval structures may have been retained.  In 1733 the estate was purchased by Sir Gregory Page to add to his already extensive Wricklemarsh estate at Blackheath.  He demolished the Tudor house and built a large new mansion on the other side of the moat to the east.

The house was occupied by a succession of people some more famous than others and finally from 1899 to 1933 by the children’s writer Edith Nesbit.  

The house was badly damaged by a fire in 1926, and the whole site was acquired by the then Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich in 1929, to become the Well Hall Pleasaunce.

Nothing remains of the 16th century mansion bit the moat with its largely Tudor brick banks and the Tudor stone arched bridge to the east have survived.(69a)  There is a modern wooden bridge over the moat to the west.

Substantial sections of the original Tudor garden walls to the south have been preserved; in the westernmost walls five triangular headed niches (some blocked) which may have been bee-boles, can be seen.

The Tudor Barn (69b & 69c) now a pub, was part of the original Tudor complex of buildings.  Its original purpose is unknown but it was probably not a barn.  It is a well preserved redbrick building, facing the site of the main mansion across the north arm of the moat, an extension to the moat run along the west side of the building.  A coat of arms on the north side front bears the date 1568, but it is generally considered to date from earlier in the 16th century.

Original features include the patterned black brick, the chimneys stacks at the west end and the rectangular mullioned windows (some blocked) at the east end; the windows at the west end are 17th century.  On the east wall the monogram WR (William Roper) and Edith Nesbit’s bell can be seen.

The white column by the lawn facing the entrance is a sundial of 1941.

The interior is worth viewing especially for the Tudor fireplaces on both floors.  On the ground floor note at the west end an original Tudor brick fireplace, and a section of distinctive stone and pebble tiled floor (which was imported later).  The upper floor is dominated by the exposed rood timbers.  

Note the west end  an original Tudor red brick fireplace, and on the south side a wall a later Tudor stone fire place with fine carving.  

In the west wall is a stained glass window showing Thomas More and his daughter Margaret Roper, designed after Holbein’s portrait by Margaret Cowel 1949.

Next;  Coronet Cinema and the Church of St Barnabus through the Progress Estate and on to The Martyrs Church taking in the memorial to Stephen Lawrence.

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

Pictures; map from Eltham and its Environ,, remaining images courtesy of Scott MacDonald

Three pictures in search of a story ………

Sometimes you know that the story is lost, that no matter how much you dig into the past it will never come out of the shadows.

But in doing so you can come close to revealing a bit of family history and maybe a bit more.

So here are three pictures, two which are part of a commercial pack advertising the sights of the Lake District and one which is quite clearly a “snap” of a party of tourists.

All three come from our dad’s collection which will date from the mid-1920s through to the 1950s.

The commercial ones were used as an aide memoir when he was working for Glenton Tours who ran touring holidays across Britain and the Continent.

He worked for them from 1932 until he retired in 1982 and was quickly promoted from home tours to those which took passengers to France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy.

And so, the pictures were what he studied in preparation for the British tours which were accompanied by a set of notes.

By the mid-1930s he was also on the Continental runs, but for these he was joined by a “courier” who was fluent in several languages and took the responsibility of describing the sights and liaising with the hotels.

Today we might be cynical of this type of holiday which if you weren’t careful and you turned away from the window you might miss a country, added to which you might need to check the day and match it with the itinerary to be sure of where you were.

But that said these were not cheap holidays and were aimed at the middle class who wanted to explore from the comfort of a motor coach and relax at the end of the day in a luxury hotel.

All of which must date the two “Lake District” pictures to sometime before the last world war, and if I was familiar with Ambleside, I might be able to match them to their modern equivalent.

As for the seven tourists I am stumped.  

I think we are in the same period as the two commercial ones, and the rounded towers suggest a Scottish location.

But that is it.  Given that it was with Dad’s other “work” photographs I am guessing he took it or was given it by another passenger on one of his tours.

It is an intriguing one and provokes a heap of speculation as to who the seven were, whether they were students, possibly a group of diplomats or just a family group.

Location; Ambleside and somewhere else, dates unknown.

Alas I doubt their identities and reason for being in the picture are lost.

Pictures; the Ambleside two and the seven tourists, circa 1920s/30s. from the Simpson collection 

Who stole my words and pictures? ……..on the wireless today

 I don’t make any great claims to my stories, pictures and research.

Be Happy, Manchester, 1979

Mr. Shakespeare, Bill Brandt, and Edward Gibbon outshine me but when I write and publish a book or post a photograph these are works which are mine and mine alone.

All Saints, Manchester, 1981

So, what follows is that I should be asked before they are reproduced in a format and in a context which I approve of, let alone the basic one of being offered payment.

And this led me to listen with great interest to today’s edition of In Our Time, which was on  Copyright.*

In the early 18th century the British Parilament passed the first copyright law, officially known as  An Act for the Encouragement of Learning and popularly as the  Statute of Anne.

To quoute the BBC's footnotes "Copyright protects and regulates a piece of work - whether that's a book, a painting, a piece of music or a software programme. It emerged as a way of balancing the interests of authors, artists, publishers, and the public in the context of evolving technologies and the rise of mechanical reproduction".

Before the Rush, The Loyds, Chorlton, 2024

The programme offered up stories about writers and artists such as Alexander Pope, William Hogarth and Charles Dickens and the heated debates about ownership and originality which continue to this day.

All of which today is reinforced by the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Hot days in a garden, Chorlton, 2025

The contributors included Lionel Bently, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Cambridge, Will Slauter, Professor of History at Sorbonne University, Paris and Katie McGettigan, Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and was produced by  Eliane Glaser.

The broadcast ranged over the history of copyright, the complicated question of what constitutes originality and to what extent protecting someone’s work restricts the development of art and technology.

All good stuff but doesn’t detract from that simple observation that copyright exists to protect the work of any author who has invested time labour and their imagination and wants to do so again.

So, often on social media people lift material, repost it without any acknowledgement, gratuity and often in an inappropriate context.

And use that simple excuse that “I saw it and thought it was alright to use”, an excuse made absurd if instead of a piece of writing or a picture, it was a bike left outside a shop.

My River, London, 1979

Location; Radio 4

Pictures; Manchester, Chorlton, London, 1979-2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Copyright, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002c3bm

The rectory the Reverend William Birley built on Edge Lane in 1845

The rectory, looking from the direction of Edge Lane, 1959

I can never make my mind up about the old rectory on Edge Lane which had been built in the 1840s and just managed to limp beyond its century before being demolished for a much smaller property in the 1960s.

It was the creation of the Reverend William Birley who of all our incumbents seemed to make things happen.

During his sixteen years in the township he had lobbied and been successful in building the new village school and the Rectory from subscriptions.

The school was a fine looking building and would serve the community for over thirty years.

As for the rectory opinions may have differed.   It was a large brick built house on three levels with an impressive stone porch facing north east.  The ground floor had tall windows which looked out on a garden screened from casual observers by a row of trees.

Inside, the rooms had lofty ceilings and were always gloomy and a touch too cold.  But this at least is how they appeared in the mid 20th century to my old friend Ida, by which time the building was suffering from damp and wood rot.

It was a place of solidity with a degree of splendid isolation which marked the Reverend Birley off as something apart from most of his flock.  Indeed the rectory stood beyond the village, so that anyone wishing to call would first have to take the road north from the green, past the Horse and Jockey out to Pitts Brow.

In his defence William Birley had brought his home close enough to the heart of the township.  Before this new rectory had been built he had lived on Upper Chorlton Road at the corner with Wood Road and before that at Irwell View, Old Trafford.*

The front of the Rectory, 1959

I look at the last pictures to be taken of the place in 1959 and I am not sure I would have liked to live there.  It is a heavy ponderous sort of building  and despite that impressive stone porch the front is less than elegant.

The bay window is too close to the front door and the windows on the top floor too squat and ugly.

But even given the winter sun perhaps we are not seeing the place at its best.  By 1959 it was surrounded by other houses and there is evidence that it has been neglected.

How much more impressive might it have seemed in the first decade after the Birley’s moved in.

Back then it commanded views across open countryside in all directions, and only if you looked to the south east was the view partially obscured by the home of William Chessyhre at Pits Brow,** which was reckoned by contemporaries to be a fine example of an old wattle and daub house.

The Rectory and Pits Brow, 1845

While the cottage of William Holland to the north was hidden by the trees of his orchard and garden.***

All of which meant there was ample room for the Birley’s four children to walk the countryside.  As to whether they ever felt at home in this big pile of a building I guess we will never know.

But the Birley’s did live in style employingfive servants including a nurse, cook and footman as well as two maids.

And yet not more than a decade and a bit after it was built they left the Rectory for Salford which is a story for another time.

As for the rectory it came down in the 1960s to be replaced by a more modest home and all that remains apart from the entrance to the grounds are a sunken garden which marks the cellars of the old property.

Picture; views of the rectory in 1959 by A.E.Landers, m17789, m17790 and m17, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and detail of Pitts Brow and the rectory in 1845 from the Tithe map of 1845

* adapted from THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Entrance gates to the grounds, 1959

** Pits Brow was that bit of land on the corner of Edge Lane and Manchester Road, directly opposite the new parish church of St Clements and now where Stockton Range stands.

*** Thomas Holland lived on Manchester Road just a little before it joins Wilbraham Road.

When you are old enough to remember half day closing ….. and more

I won’t be the only one who remembers when shops closed early one day in the week, pubs stopped serving in the middle of the afternoon and that week in summer when everything in Ashton ground to a halt during Wakes Week.

Mr. England outside his shop by Chorlton Green, circa 1960s

Not that this is some nostalgic meander through the past.

Even then it seemed to me that shop workers and publicans deserved their time off, more so when the shop was one of those corner ones which were pretty much “open all hours”.

Added to which Wakes week seemed a fine idea until you lived in the town and the place became very quiet.

And growing up in the 1950s there were those regulations which prevented you buying some products which in turn led me once to swear eternal secrecy by the shop keeper when I was sent for a packet of butter which she doubled wrapped in newspaper. That said it could have been eggs or potatoes, which the passage of nearly 70 years has made obscure.

It reinforces that other memory of Sundays which was boredom.  Too young to go to the cinema, and with limited hours of broadcasting on the one channel on the telly, the day stretched out as a day to endure.

Most of my friends didn’t play out on a Sunday which left the time divided between rereading last weeks comics and watching the odd passerby.

Paul England outside the shops by the Green, circa 1960s

And then things changed with the relaxation of the laws on retail trading and pub hours, which I can pinpoint.

But just when half day closing became a thing of the past I have yet to track down, along with the slow decline of the traditional retail pattern which saw several grocery shops, green grocers, and butchers existing close to each other in every small community.

Of course, before the widespread ownership of fridges and freezers shopping daily was more to do with keeping food fresh than a lifestyle choice.

But now with online shopping, and the bike delivery just a click away half day closing is just a redundant memory.

Leaving me just to acknowdge that in Varese in northern Italy where some of the faily live, the shops still do close for a few hours in the middle of the day.

And that's it.

Location; the past

Pictures; shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

“To prove them wrong” ……….

 I have never hidden that I had and still do have difficulties with literacy.

It made many aspects of learning in school a daily torture which presented a vast chasm between me and many of my contemporaries and plunged me into acres of self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness.

All of which was compounded by Miss Reeves in Junior Four who on the cusp of the eleven plus examination told Mother that I “was not academically inclined”.

A Solomon like judgement which burned in mum, and doomed dad and I to endless nights practicing eleven plus past papers in the kitchen by the stove through the winter months.

All to no avail, as I failed that “test of intelligence and future promise” confirming the assessment of Miss Reeves and consigning me to a Secondary Modern School.

A fact that years later further underlined my lack of academic credentials when I became a teacher in a Manchester High School and realized that I was the only Secondary Modern kid amongst an entire staff who had gone to grammar schools.*

Made worse by that simple realization that I could not trust myself to write on the blackboard, and so painfully all the words I might need to fall back on were written in advance.

At 75 the shame, and indignation still walk with me, but less so, but were reignited today while listening to Nigel McCrery on Saturday Live from BBC Radio Four.**

He is responsible for the long running crime series, Silent Witness and the delightful New Tricks along with a range of other works.

He is dyslexic suffered greatly at school, and confessed at 71 that he still hates a teacher who regularly publicly humiliated him. 

And it so chimed with me.

He said people thought he is well read, when in fact he is "very well listened" having spent ages with Talking Books, and said of his reason for writing that it was to "write for revenge" and so "prove them wrong".  Adding that "there are always "ways around things" to cover the difficulties with literacy.

So, as a policeman he would take his reports home and work on them to correct grammatical mistakes, and because he couldn’t read the menus in transport cafés he visited as a lorry driver he would work out what was on the board from the smells.

I still have to rely on a spell check and when it doesn’t recognise my attempts at spelling a word, I fall back on a different word which often means I am forced to rewrite the sentence.

Many of us will have those moments which can be as vivid now as when we were young.

For me, one of them was when I was sent out of class by the teacher to check the time on the hall clock only to be confronted by a bout of wild terror as the numerals and the hands meant nothing, and I clung on desperately to the hope someone would pass through and help me.

Of course, in the great sweep of physical and learning difficulties encountered by many, my dyslexia might not seem to count for a "hill of beans", but it was real then and still is now.

But like many I coped, came through it and while it still sits on my shoulder, I do now wear it with a bit of pride.

Not that I rank myself beside Mr. McCrery whose skill as a writer and whose literary output far outweighs me, but it is a confirmation that perhaps Miss Reeves was wrong and  I was not thick.

Location; 75 years of my time

Pictures; Young Andrew, circa 1958, and 1961

*To be strictly accurate, there were amongst the staff, three who had been "emergency trained" after the war having gone straight from the services into teaching and one plumber who switched from  the Direct Works Department of the City Council to the Education Department.

**Saturday Live Radio Four, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024lhd