I often wonder what William Davis would have made of Beech Road today. He was the blacksmith who performed the magic of heating and hammering from his forge from the early 1830s until sometime just before 1860.
Of course back then it was called Chorlton Row and standing at his open workshop he would have had an almost uninterrupted view across the fields to High Lane and on to Martledge. His immediate neighbour was the gentleman Daniel Sharpe whose fine brick house stood a little back from the road in its own grounds. It is still there today, partly disfigured by an extension at the front and missing half its roof after a fire. Beyond it was the Wesleyan Chapel rebuilt in 1825 and a row of wattle and daub cottages which stood at the end of Row where it ran into the green.
This end of the Row would have been just as busy as it is today. The smithy attracted a regular flow of people calling in to have farm and household tools repaired and in the nature of these things they stayed to gossip before perhaps moving off to Samuel Nixon’s beer shop almost opposite at what is now number 70, and then there would be the children attracted by the sparks and the noise they would stand and watch.
Just as my old friend Marjorie Holmes did on her way to school in the early 1930s. And there is the continuity because when William Davis left the Row the Clarke family took over and continued to work the metal from 1860 till the middle of the 20th century.
By 1913 when this picture of Charles Clarke was taken this end of the Row had changed dramatically. True the smithy was still there but otherwise much of Peter’s painting would have in place including the Whitaker's who had been selling groceries on the Row from 1851 and by the beginning of the last century had a fine shop on the corner of Beech Road and Chorlton Green, but that is for another story.
Peter as you know paints pictures and I tell stories. His work is on display around Chorlton and can also be seen at https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
An occasional series of stories and pictures in the run up to the Glad to be in Chorlton Past and Present exhibition during the Big Green Festival on March 31st.
Picture; Peter Topping 2011 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk, and picture of Charles Clarke, Courtesy of Greater Manchester Archives DPA 32818
Of course back then it was called Chorlton Row and standing at his open workshop he would have had an almost uninterrupted view across the fields to High Lane and on to Martledge. His immediate neighbour was the gentleman Daniel Sharpe whose fine brick house stood a little back from the road in its own grounds. It is still there today, partly disfigured by an extension at the front and missing half its roof after a fire. Beyond it was the Wesleyan Chapel rebuilt in 1825 and a row of wattle and daub cottages which stood at the end of Row where it ran into the green.
This end of the Row would have been just as busy as it is today. The smithy attracted a regular flow of people calling in to have farm and household tools repaired and in the nature of these things they stayed to gossip before perhaps moving off to Samuel Nixon’s beer shop almost opposite at what is now number 70, and then there would be the children attracted by the sparks and the noise they would stand and watch.
Just as my old friend Marjorie Holmes did on her way to school in the early 1930s. And there is the continuity because when William Davis left the Row the Clarke family took over and continued to work the metal from 1860 till the middle of the 20th century.
By 1913 when this picture of Charles Clarke was taken this end of the Row had changed dramatically. True the smithy was still there but otherwise much of Peter’s painting would have in place including the Whitaker's who had been selling groceries on the Row from 1851 and by the beginning of the last century had a fine shop on the corner of Beech Road and Chorlton Green, but that is for another story.
Peter as you know paints pictures and I tell stories. His work is on display around Chorlton and can also be seen at https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
An occasional series of stories and pictures in the run up to the Glad to be in Chorlton Past and Present exhibition during the Big Green Festival on March 31st.
Picture; Peter Topping 2011 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk, and picture of Charles Clarke, Courtesy of Greater Manchester Archives DPA 32818
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