Back on Market Street sometime before 1908

I am back on Market Street sometime on a summer’s day in 1908.

I was last here a few days ago and have been drawn back to the detail in this postcard.

Today this side of the road on the way up from High Street to Piccadilly is dominated by the big white slab which is Debenhams and was once Pauldens.

But back then contained fifteen different businesses, ranging from the London City and Midland Bank, the Angel Hotel, H Samuel watchmaker, a tobacconists, a tourist agency and my own favourite Finningans Ltd, portmanteau manufactures.

Finningans' operated from numbers 113 & 115 Market Street and it is their shop front which can be made out in the detail of the picture.

 But no blog post would be complete without a tram and so here is tram car number 486 bound for Belle Vue about to enter Piccadilly accompanied by a hand cart on one side and surrounded by horse drawn cabs.

All of which reminds us that the horse was as much a part of our streets as the car is today.

There would have been horse drawn cabs, as well as carts and wagons.  All the main railway companies maintained stables near their warehouses and there were still blacksmiths listed in the city street directories.



Pictures; from a postcard of Market Street in the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop

Our card was sent not from Manchester but from Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire and it was part of the Milton Series produced by Woolstone Brothers of London  and was a  hand coloured card which may have actually been produced in Saxony