This is the last of Peter’s paintings of Beech Road in 2012 which are part of the Glad to be in Chorlton Past and Present exhibition at the Big Green Festival on March 31st.
Together we have been focusing on how Beech Road and the experience of shopping have changed over the last 160 years. Back then in the spring of 1850 none of these buildings would have been here, instead there would have been open land, a mix of pasture, meadowland and the garden of Thomas White. If you had stood on the edge of the road and looked south beyond this stretch of farmland there was an orchard and more open farmland down to the brook.
I have to admit I have done little in the way of research on this stretch, but by 1860 there was a grand new impressive brick house called Joel View where the new development stands. Talking to my old friend Marjorie she remembers it was set slightly back and looking at photographs from 1970 it was a solid two storey brick property which today would be much sought after.
There is one surviving photograph of the shop which is now the Clinic. In 1958 it was the grocer’s shop of H. Westwell, who had commissioned a painted hoarding just below the top window advertising the arrival of tinned fish.
Many of us will remember the double fronted shop of J. Johnny where you could pick up anything from screws to insulating tape and where in my experience the price of the same item was never the same. In its place we have the semi gated community whose name has a link to the smithy of William Davis and Charles Clarke which stood a little to the west of this building.
Peter’s work is on display around Chorlton and can also be seen at https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
Picture; © Peter Topping 2011 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
I have to admit I have done little in the way of research on this stretch, but by 1860 there was a grand new impressive brick house called Joel View where the new development stands. Talking to my old friend Marjorie she remembers it was set slightly back and looking at photographs from 1970 it was a solid two storey brick property which today would be much sought after.
There is one surviving photograph of the shop which is now the Clinic. In 1958 it was the grocer’s shop of H. Westwell, who had commissioned a painted hoarding just below the top window advertising the arrival of tinned fish.
Many of us will remember the double fronted shop of J. Johnny where you could pick up anything from screws to insulating tape and where in my experience the price of the same item was never the same. In its place we have the semi gated community whose name has a link to the smithy of William Davis and Charles Clarke which stood a little to the west of this building.
Peter’s work is on display around Chorlton and can also be seen at https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
Picture; © Peter Topping 2011 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment