Revisiting Hardy Lane Cottages a story from December

Annie Gresty was born in 1871 and grew up in Hardy Cottages which were a collection of eight and sometimes nine cottages on Hardy Lane.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century they stood as a lonely outpost of the community on the edge of the flood plain which led down to the Mersey. Looking out of an upstairs window Annie would have seen a landscape dominated by meadow land, gardens and orchards. She may have played in Barlow Wood to the south east of the cottages and surely would have walked across the fields to the river. Beyond her home there was only Hardy Farm before the river with Barlow Hall and Barlow Hall Farm some distance away.

The cricket ground and golf course which had been laid out behind the cottages were a recent development. Before 1900 the Gresty’s and their neighbours would have had an unobstructed view from their cottages across to Barlow Woods.

She shared number 2 Hardy cottage with six other family members.

Earlier homes for farm workers were often no better than hovels and may have been far worse than the new back to back houses which were being thrown up in the fast growing industrial towns. These older rural properties were made of wattle and daub, lacked a damp course, or proper foundations and drainage. There were certainly plenty of wattle and daub houses here in Chorlton, of which some were very dilapidated. In the 1830s there may have been as many as 50, but by the 1880s only a handful still existed.
Hardy Cottages or the Block as they became known were a mix of different nationalities, some more crowded than others and most linked to the land.

Picture; Hardy Cottages on Hardy Lane, date unknown from the collection of Andrew Simpson