Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone

I am old enough to have fond memories of Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot


Now I am reminded of the lyrics as I sit and look at this picture of Joel House. It was built sometime after 1841 and stood set back from Beech Road till it was demolished in October 1978, and the thing is I must have passed it countless times and never noticed it or thought anything of the large expanse of open land which was created by it going.

It must have been a fine home. It had nine rooms with a long garden and looks bigger than its near neighbour which still stands a little further down Beech Road beside the Wesleyan Chapel. It was on that spot of Beech Road just past the pet shop and Clinic and is now partly covered by the new devlopment called the Forge. .

So the picture taken by N Fife who was one of those forgotten historians of where we live is a priceless record.
I would have loved to have gone in and looked around because I guess there might have been some of the original features. As it was for the rest of the 70s until early in this century the site was left to grow grass.

Trawling the census returns and directories gives an idea of who lived there which is about all that is left. Even long term residents who were born here in the years between the two world wars have hazy memories about the place. I suppose like me it is partly because what you see on a regular basis becomes so common place that it passes out of the significant.

And as I have become more interested in the history of where I live I realize just how much has gone or been adapted in the last thirty five years. These include the early 19th century cottages on High Lane and Sandy Lane, the old parish church yard and the barns of Higginbotham’s farm on the green. Nor has it stopped, the Wesleyan Chapel is now a restaurant, the National School building will soon be private residents, and of course the old police station is now the Lead Station.

So perhaps the price of maintaining our knowledge of past Chorlton is eternal vigilance.

Picture; by N Fife in the Lloyd collection