Childhood memories of war service, a farm on Turn Moss and an end to a debate

Some time ago as I walked along the old road across Turn Moss I tried to picture the farm that had once been there.

Fellow historian Ida Bradshaw had often been puzzled by the location of the farm. She remembered it but had not seen any evidence of the place.

Then it all began to fall into place.

There are pictures of the farm and it appears on the OS maps for the 1840s and 1880s and in the the census returns as well as various books on the history of Stretford.

John Bailey in his book Old Stretford published in 1878 wrote that “Turf moss or Turn Moss in the low lying meadows or ees, is mentioned in one of the Mosley Wills in 1612.

It was and is likely always to be a lonely house and is yet surrounded by embankments to protect it from the floods. 

 In 1771, when the estate was on sale it contained 93 Lancashire acres.”  but by the mid 20th century its size had shrunk so that when Samuel Massey in his book A History of Stretford, 1976 reported that

“Turn Moss Farm. Formerly Turfe Moss Farm. The fields, few in number, surrounded the far. The farm was approached from Edge Lane and from Hawthorn Road. The cellars of the farm house were subject to flooding. The occupiers were dependant for water on a shallow well and rainwater tank.” 

But what has really brought the old farm back is one of Alan Brown’s stories, who remembers working there as a boy in the 1940s. He was one of the many young people who were encouraged to help out working on farms during the Second World War.

This was the period of “Dig for Victory” with food in short supply parks gardens and even the tops of air raid shelters were used to cultivate crops.

So Alan did his bit walking from his home near the green down the old road, now more commonly known as Hawthorn Lane to the farm and a stint of voluntary war work.

Picture; Turn Moss 1965, kindly supplied by David Bishop