More from the Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive, all you ever wanted to know but never knew who to ask

One of the things that I really enjoy is reading other sites on local history.

It’s that mix of things, ranging from new ideas on how to communicate stories of the past, the opportunity to follow links and fresh lines of enquiry and just the sheer pleasure in learning more about places.

So it’s time I think to mention Bruce Anderson’s site, Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive http://rusholmearchive.org/ again

It is one that I have referred to already* but is well worth coming back to.  I first came across it while following up some research on Mrs W.C Williamson who wrote Sketches of Fallowfield and the Surrounding Manors Past and Present in 1888. Like our own Thomas Ellwood Mrs Williams recorded the memories of people who lived in the area when it was still a rural community.

And so there are parallels with our own township’s agricultural past and its transformation into a suburb of Manchester.

It’s written with that same love of the locality and a keen sense of research which makes all such sites a good read.

Moreover I rather think you cannot fully understand how Chorlton changed if you do not read about the neighbouring areas, after all what happened to us was also happening to Fallowfield, Burnage, Withington and Didsbury.

First it was the wealthy seeking homes well away from the city centre, then the development of housing estates for the “middling people” and “the 6 shilling a week” families who took advantage of the new train and tram networks to travel into the heart of Manchester but live on the edge of the countryside. And so within the space of three decades what had been rural communities became dormitory  suburbs, and the landscape, people and customs which Mrs C.W. Williamson and Thomas Ellwood described had long gone.

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-rusholme-and-victoria-archive.html

Pictures; from the collection of Bruce Anderson