Fourteen random pictures in search of a story …. photographs from a Chorlton house

I am looking at a collection of photographs found in a house.

They are mix of images all of which I guess date from the middle decades of the last century and were in a discarded box at 515-521 Barlow Moor Road.

And they are a mix, ranging from images of smart cars, and equally smart “young things” on holiday to a group of men in uniform and the Grand Hotel Oceanic. 

If there is a connection between all fourteen it is hard to discern what that might be, but cars and holidays seem crop up in a few of them.  

The quality varies and while some are fuzzy and indistinct others are sharp and look to have been taken by a professional or at least on a good camera.

So, the question then becomes what can I make of them?

There are no names, inscriptions or comments on the pictures, and the people stare back at ne offering no clue to their identity.

Nor at first glance is it possible to make anything of the places.  In some we could be anywhere in the country and while there is a bus, half a pub and a shop they are not yielding up their secrets.

But we do have The Béout cable car and according to one local site worked the mountain called "Le Béout”, which is “southwest of the town of Lourdes. 

The Béout cable car (on the left bank of the Gave River) was somewhat of a counterpart to the Pic du Jer funicular (located on the right bank). 

Built around the 1930s, the cable car ceased operation in the 1990s and was permanently dismantled in 2000 (one of the cabins was once on display in the Pic du Jer parking lot)

Operated by the municipality, the cable car was shut down because it no longer met the new safety standards. The necessary upgrades would have been too costly (the Pibeste cable car suffered the same fate). The residents of Lourdes are nostalgic for this cable car, as it was free for them. 

Young people from Lourdes at the time remember the wooden floor of the cabin where you could see the drop through the slats”.

Our picture shows a group of tourists and amongst them are a couple who show up on at least three other pictures.

And as one of them is sitting in a smart car there is that possible link to the other picture of cars.

These include an E Type Jaguar and a sporty Triumph.

And the cars offer up our first series clue, because two of them display their registrations plates.  

Neither shows up in any searches, which would suggest the vehicle had been scrapped or exported but in the case of 7834VM it was issued by Manchester City Council between late 1961 and early 1963, while WCA574 can be tracked to Denbighshire in Wales and may date from the 1950s and early 1960s.

A date in the early sixties does also seem to chime in with the fashionable hair and clothes of one woman and confirmed by the presence of that E Type Jaguar which started rolling off production lines in 1961.

Now there will be an “expert” which can place the E Type and Triumph in their right year, but I am not one of them.

And I would have liked to have fixed the fourteen in the story of the house where they were found and in the bigger story of Chorlton.

But so far that is not to be.

Maybe someone will come forward and identify some of the individuals or knows who owned the pictures.  

In the meantime, I will continue to release the images but am well aware that the owner may long go have left the area or just decided the pictures weren’t worth keeping.

All of which is sad, but the present owner of the property is thinking of displaying some of the photographs when the development is finished and the pictures can take pride of place as part of the story of 515-521 Barlow Moor Road.**

Location; at 515-521 Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Fourteen random pictures in search of a story

*The Béout chasm in Lourdes; http://lieux.loucrup65.fr/gouffredelourdes.htm

**Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

Just when you thought you knew the age of the Trevor Arms on Beech Road

The Trevor was my local from 1976 well into the middle of the next decade and was a busy and happy place.

At the time and until quite recently I gave little thought to its history, it was simply the pub run by Stan and Mona and their daughter Christine and always a place where you find someone you knew to talk to.

If I did give its past any thought I just assumed the date above the door of 1908 was when it was opened, but beer was being sold from this spot from 1879.

Back then the site was occupied by a row of wattle and daub cottages, one of which had been the home of Mary Crowther who was made to do penance in the church at the beginning of the 19th century.

It is unclear what Mary had done but during the closing decades of the eighteenth century she had given birth to three illegitimate children and it may be that it was for this that she was made to do penance.

She was the last person to do so, and lived out her life, with one of her sons in the cottage and was buried in the parish church yard.

By 1871 one of these cottages was owned by the Langford family.

Jonathan Langford came from an old Chorlton family and a decade earlier had given his occupation as a "gardener" and lived on Dark Lane.

In 1874 his daughter Elizabeth was living there and running the shop and  by 1879 she was renting it out to a succession of “beer housekeepers.”

The last of these tenants was William Downs.  By 1897 the property was transferred to Groves and Whitnall which had taken over the Regent Road Brewery in 1868 and began a rapid expansion which by the time they were registered in 1899 included nearly 600 pubs.

Now there is a lot more I want to know about Mrs Langford as well as William Downs who in 1898 was superseded by Miss Mary Catherine Hayes.

But that is for another story.

Picture; the Trevor early 20th century from the collection of Tony Walker

Along time in the story of a house in Eltham

Cliefden House in 1909

Now I am back at Cliefden House.

This grand 18th century property is still there on the High Street opposite Passey Place.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century.

Together this made for a large 17 roomed house which could accommodate and it has been both a private residence, and a school and now shops and offices.

I have written about it in the past and have decided on a second visit.  Now this is mainly because I want to feature a then and now set of pictures, although strictly speaking they are both then pictures.

The first dates from 1909 and the second from 1977.

Cliefen House in 1977

In the space of that time the front garden and wall have been sacrificed to the widening of the High Street and with scant disregard for such an elegant old property Granada and Frisbys Shoes set about adding the most appalling signage to the exterior.

And we may just have caught the place on a bad year for the front walls look in need of a coat of paint.

So I suppose today we have to be pleased that the present two occupants of the downstairs shops have been a little more subdued with their signs and a fresh coat of paint has been applied.

Pictures; Cliefden House in 1909 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 and in 1977, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Out on Bury Road in 1949 ..............

Now, I like this picture, for lots of different reasons.

It was taken just a few months before I was born, out along Bury Old Road.

One day I will go looking for the firm Cornall of Bury, but for now I am content to study the old-fashioned lorry and the three men staring back at me.

Flat caps, overalls and long coats were the order of the day, over the sleek corporate uniforms supplied to transport workers today.

And the rest as they say is for you to discover, leaving me just to point to the bucket of water at the rear of the lorry on the pavement.

Location; Bury Old Road










Picture; Lorry, Bury Old Road, near Heaton Park, February 21st, 1949, from the collection of Allan Brown

Odd facts about Chorlton no 1 ...... when Mr and Mrs Royce lived on Holland Road

Now I like the way that I sometimes get asked to research a bit of Chorlton’s history, at which point I have to declare that it isn’t difficult, it is just a matter of trawling various official documents.

Holland Road, circa 1900

In this case tit was the Rate Books, which I used to find the address of Mr Frederick Henry Royce, he of the famous Rolls Royce partnership.

It turned out to take just a few minutes and I found Mr and Mrs Royce at 2 Holland Road, which is now Zetland Road from 1893, till February 1898.

The property was owned by Mr John Turner who owned 6 houses on Holland Road.

The annual rent was estimated at £35 and the rateable value was £29 15s.*

The property is still there, and is the first house on the western side of Zetland Road, from Corkland Road.

At which point I could go into great detail about the partnership but cars have never really interested me.

So I will leave it at that, only to say I could have taken a picture of the house today, but instead preferred this one, which dates from a little after they had left, and is of course of the other end of Holland/Zetland Road.

It is a scene I guess they would have been familiar with.

I have no idea how Mr Royce got to work, but by 1893 our railway station had been in the business of whisking commuters into the heart of the city in under fifteen minutes.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Holland Road, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection

*Manchester Rate Books, 1893-98

Walking up the High Street on a January day in 1914

Now there are many ways of recreating a walk up the High Street on a day log ago.

One of the easiest is to use photographs from the past, another is to look up the census record and today I am going to use a street directory.

That directory is the 1914 Post Office Directory listing the names of people and businesses from Well Hall Road east along the High Street.

At which point I would usually go off and dig deep into the records to uncover something of the lives of Mrs Dobell of Sherard house, Mr Rosselli of Mr Merlwood and Mrs Yeatman of Cliefden house, but all have appeared in the blog over the years as have the their homes.

And so has the blacksmiths and the London & South Western Bank ltd.

All you have to do to find them is use the search box on the right hand side of the story.

So that just leaves me to suggest you download the list of 1914 occupants and wander up to the High Street to check out who is there now.

Location; Eltham









Pictures; list of residents and businesses from the Post Directory, 1914 and the northern side of the High Street in 2015 from collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

When St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester moved out to Prestbury

I came across David’s story of Collar House in Prestbury and its role in the last world war as an annexe to St Mary’s in Manchester.  He kindly let me reproduce it here.

St Mary's in 1939

Amongst his many activities is the Furness Vale Local History Society and his own blog site, Bricks, both of which are well worth visiting.*

"I was born at St Mary’s Hospital yet my place of birth is recorded as Macclesfield which was where my parents lived at the time.

A little research on the internet has given me some background to the story. 

Faced with the possibility of air raids, the St Mary’s Hospital Board chose to close their City Centre maternity wards. Collar House in Prestbury was owned by the Moseley family who were then living in Wales and in 1939 was rented by the hospital as an annexe. 

This was a large house with extensive grounds. It had its own water and electricity supply as well as a laundry. It was converted to hold 45 beds and had maternity wards and nurseries as well as a theatre, dispensary and accommodation for 30 staff. Nearby Prestbury Hall and Adlington Hall were also to become hospitals. St Mary’s remained at Collar House until 1952 when the maternity wards returned to the City. 

During those 13 years, more than 14000 children were born at the three Prestbury hospitals. Originally a farm, Collar house dates from before 1780 and has been occupied by a number of different families. 

Collar House, date unknown

Collar House, much extended is now occupied by Beaumont Nursing Home.

A book by Mary E. Roberts has been published on the history of Collar House and is available from Waterstones.

The pages of the Manchester Guardian add a little more to the history of this wartime annex of St Mary’s Hospital. The Guardian of 9th December 1939 reported that Collar House had received its first maternity cases that Monday. It was described as a pleasant Cheshire mansion.  

The board of St Mary’s had decided to evacuate cases from a 'dangerous' to a 'safe' location after some deliberation. “Suitable cases” were to be transferred to Prestbury by ambulance leaving more complex cases for treatment at Whitworth Park Hospital.

At the outbreak of war the board appointed Miss D. H. Stuart to Matron-in-Charge. Fifty staff with were initially transferred to Blackpool together with medical equipment. It was soon realised that expectant mothers were unhappy to leave their neighbourhood and the scheme was phased out.

In January 1945, The Guardian reported that the Prestbury Hall Maternity Home had been due to close in a short time. 

The Manchester Public Health Committee, faced with an acute demand for maternity beds had decided that St Mary’s Hospitals should continue running this home for a short time in conjunction with Collar House. 

In March 1946, The Guardian reported that the Public Health Committee had recommended the purchase of Collar House for the sum of £9750. The cost of running the home was £12732 and annual income from patients £4500 leaving a deficit of £8232. The hospital had a capacity for 800 patients a year.

In December 1952 the Ministry of Health had decided to return Collar House to its owner. This would result in a loss of 40 beds. St Mary’s had 82 beds at Whitworth Street and this reduction would threaten its position as a teaching hospital.

In June 1957, a bus crashed in London’s Oxford Street, killing 7 and injuring a further 12. Among the fatalities was Miss Forbes-Graham, matron of Collar House Hospital who was on a week’s leave.  She had worked at St. Mary’s since 1929 and was involved in the evacuation of children from Manchester in 1939.  

She became Sister-in-Charge of Collar House Hospital and continued as Matron when the hospital transferred to the Macclesfield Hospital Group in 1952.

Perhaps that 1946 purchase did not proceed for the 1952 article suggests that it was still being rented, although Collar House remained as a hospital into the 1970’s as part of the Macclesfield Hospital.

I have not seen any reference to any annex of St Mary’s in North Manchester other than the Blackpool episode.  Collar House was used as a convalescent home in the 60’s. I have not as yet found any reference to any other use that Macclesfield Hospital found for the building.

There are several references to Collar House on the internet. One website states categorically that this had been the home of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. 

Not very well researched for the Moseley family of Prestbury did not even spell their name in the same way as Sir Oswald."

© David Eastman November 2013

Pictures; St Mary’s Hospital A P Morris, 1939, m53220, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and Collar Hospital from the collection of David Eastman

*Furness Vale Local History Society, http://furnesshistory.blogspot.co.uk/ & Bricks, http://brickcourse.blogspot.co.uk/