Of lost water courses and hidden places, Chorlton Brook and the River Wogebourne

Now when you write about rural communities in the past you quickly become aware just how important water courses, ponds and wells were to the well being of the place and the success of agriculture.

As few of us are directly involved in farming and only visit the countryside the connection with open water is less vital.

It comes in pipes from reservoirs high up in Derbyshire and the Lakes and is there at the turn of a tap.

And many of the brooks and rivers which openly flowed across south Manchester have long since been buried underground or have just dried up, and with them have gone the ponds and wells which have  been drained or filled in.

It remains one of my abiding fascinations and long after the book on Chorlton’s rural past* was finished I continue to hunt out the old water courses and areas of surface water.

Stream in Shooters Hill Golf Course

And of course what applied to Chorlton also applies to Eltham which is that other place I often write about.

It too was a rural community on the edge of a big city and many of its residents made a living from farming and market gardening.

So I was drawn to two articles in Shooters Hill** which is a wonderful blog about an area of Eltham I know well.

Both stories feature water courses and the search for ones that have been lost.

Now I have never thought it proper to lift other people’s research and work.  It is that simple observation that if it has been done well the first times I am not going to try and do better.

Instead I shall point you to the two links below on Shooters Hill Springs and The Lost River Wogebourne.

Both are excellent stories starting with a bit of detection and taking you by degree across both time and place in the search for these water courses.

They are  set in south east London but have an instant application to Chorlton and south Manchester because the process of identifying the streams and brooks, matching up the historical sources and oral testimony with old maps and modern ones is equally applicable to Chorlton.

Stream through Woodlands Farm

So while the the Chorlton Brook, is still visible  the Longford Brook, and the Black Brook have long gone underground, while the Rough Leech Gutter which is  my own favourite, was lost  and pretty much forgotten about.

And all of this goes a long way to explaining why  Eltham regularly appears on a blog about Chorlton.

Both were and are similar so reading about one gives a context to the history of the other.

After all what happened in Chorlton is replicated in Whaley Range, Fallowfield, Burnage and beyond so it makes sense.

And I like Eltham.

Pictures; Holland Wood from the Lloyd Collection, and reamining pictures courtesy of Shooters Hill, http://e-shootershill.co.uk/


*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html
**Shooters Hill Springs, http://e-shootershill.co.uk/springs/ & The Lost River Wogebourne, http://e-shootershill.co.uk/wogebourne/