What’s in a name? ........ Part two, fifty years in the story of Oswald Lane and Fielden Avenue

Oswald lane in 1961

Now as much as Oswald Lane and Fielden Avenue fascinated me I have to admit I had not walked down either of them for a long time.

So when I decided to write about them recently it was to revisit how they had changed from the country lane that was Oswald Lane and the fields where Fielden Avenue now sits.

Back them the land was a mix of “ponds and waste”, the gardens and cottages which stood beside Oswald Field and the "wood and pond" worked by Mary White.

Oswald Lane today

And in the course of doing the research I went down to Manchester Road and followed the meandering Oswald Lane past the end of Fielden Avenue and on to where the lane joins Oswald Road.

The houses that backed on to the northern side of the lane have gone and the lane itself has been repositioned to turn at right angles and join Claridge Road leaving the old line of the lane as a narrow footpath which I suspect was pretty much as it was back in the 1840s.

Now as I never tire or telling people I do have a habit of travelling the old lanes and roads of Chorlton as they might have been in the mid 19th century so to walk that footpath just west of Fielden Avenue was a tad like it might have been in 1840.

Oswald lane in 1973

Well just a tad and before any one accuses me of romantic speculation based on a vivid imagination I will close.

And leave you with another image of Oswald Lane, this time in 1973, just three years before I would wash up here in Chorlton.

Pictures; Oswald Lane, 1961, A H Downes, M18075, and in 1973, H Milligan, m18155, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and part of the footpath once Oswald Lane today from the collection of Andrew Simpson