We woke to rain this morning. Now the house stirs early and some of the kids are up and running by 6 to be out to catch their buses for work just after 7. I too am up by 6 making the first espresso of the day.
And it is one of those typical April mornings. The leaves on the trees are almost all out, our cherry trees have blossom and there is something serious going on with the vine and hop plants. All of which is fine and should promise a bright sunny morning but it is raining and as I carry out the ash from last night’s fires I notice just how cold it can still be at this time of the year.
Which got me thinking of the joys of working the land here in Chorlton just over 170 years ago when we were still a rural community. Back then 96 of the 119 families derived their livelihood from farming while another 16 who were traders and craftsmen were also directly dependant on how the crops fared.
Henry Stephens in his book The History of the Farm first published in the 1844 wrote that “spring is a busy season on the farm. The cattle-man, besides continuing his attendance on fattening cattle, has now the delicate task of waiting on the cows at calving, and providing comfortable lairs for new dropped cows. The diary-maid commences her labours in rearing calves, [and] the farrow pigs now claim a share in her solitude. The condition of the fields demands attention as well as the reproduction of the stock. The day now affords as many hours for labour as are usually bestowed at any season in the field. The ploughman, therefore, know no rest for at least twelve hours every day, from the time the harrowers are yoked for the oat-seed until the potato and turnip crops are sown..... The field workers devote their busy hours to carrying seed to the sower, turning dunghills in preparing manure for the potato and turnip crops, and continuing the barn work to supply litter for the stock yet confided in the steading, and to prepare the seed corn for the fields. The hedger now resumes his work of water-tabling and scouring ditches, cutting down and breasting old hedges, and taking care to release the hedge bank which he planted at the commencement and during fresh weather in winter.”*
This plot of land was known as Row Acre reflecting its location on the Row which was the traditional name for Beech Road. It was mainly arable land and like many of our farmers the Bailey’s were market gardeners who grew crops for the Manchester markets. They rented 7 acres of which most was on Row Acre although they did also have part of Summer Acre which was meadow land running from what is now Sandy Lane to Corkland Road. This was intensive farming and they would expect to get several crops from the ground during the year.
Well the day has not got better. There was a moment round about 10 when a small patch of blue opened up in the otherwise seamless grey of the sky and the sun shone, but it did not last. Despite the vivid green leaves on the trees, the Rec looks pretty forbidding and I have more than a little sympathy for William Bailey and James Higginbotham as they tended their plots of land beside the Row in the April of 1845.
Pictures, from the Lloyd collection and the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Stephens, Henry, The Book of the Farm, 1844, page 343
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Books%20and%20reviews
An occasional series reflecting on the farming year here in the township in the middle years of the 19th century, and linked to my book Chorlton-cum-Hardy, A Society Transfomed, to be published in September. http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton
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