Oxford Street 1910

This is one of those pictures which continues to draw me in and offers so many little surprises which on the way says much about the period it was taken.

We are on Oxford Street sometime in the first decade of the last century.  The postcard was sent in the summer of 1911 but the photograph will be older.

And it is instantly recognizable as the point where Oxford Street crosses Whitworth Street and Whitworth Street West.  To our right is the Palace Theatre and beyond the Refuge building.

But you will have to be a certain age to remember the buildings on the right.  They were still there in 1969 when I first came to Manchester and were much the worse for wear and did not survive into the new century.

I wish I could remember the name of the cafe close to the junction with Whitworth Street West.  I think it was the Continental whose 60s’ decor was beginning to look a little tired but the other premises have faded from my memory.

Back in 1911 and starting from the canal bridge and working down to Whitworth Street West was the Oxford Road Hotel and South Junction Inn, a tobacconists, a confectioner and the cocoa rooms of Lockhart Brothers Ltd, Dingley’s Ltd fruiterers and the side entrance of St Mary’s Hospital for Women and Children.

This was a time when many things as well as people still got round by horse, so on either side of the trams were two heavy waggons which look like they are full of coal, while heading up the road is light cart and down underneath the railway bridge are more horse drawn vehicles.

All of which begs the question of what the two unaccompanied horses outside the theatre are doing.  They are connected by leather straps but appear to be walking on their own.

But they are framed by that wonderful glass and iron canopy which add another level of elegance to the Palace.

And the more I study the theatres and later the cinemas of the period the more I wish these canopies have survived.

Once many of our theatres and picture houses had them and I have often wondered if they were painted black or brightly coloured.

In the same way I would love to know more about the tiled surrounds to the shops which included the Oxford Road Hotel and South Junction Inn.

I guess they have been similar to the frontage on the Sawyers Arms on Deansgate.

What I guess we will never know is what has caught the attention of the group of men who are staring to the left and just above the camera.

It is just one of those things which the picture will never reveal.

Pictures; from the postcard of Oxford Street in the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop.