Looking south from Beech Road in 1907 |
Now I would like to have stood in our dining room on a warm summer’s day soon after Joe and Mary Ann moved in.
Back then they would have had an uninterrupted view south across to the Brook and the Ville and had they been on the same spot just a decade earlier that view would have stretched pretty much all the way to the Mersey given the odd set of trees.
Nor was that all because the plot of land they bought was sandwiched between two farms and overlooked the Rec.
All of which is a reminder that in 1915 this bit of Chorlton had yet to lose some of its rural character.
We still had a blacksmith at the bottom of Beech Road and children were still regularly sent to buy milk, butter and cheese from the local farms.
Looking south in 1934 |
And it would be Joe Scott who added to the urbanisation by building many of the small houses on what are now Provis, Higson and Neal Roads, and then in the fullness of time completing the job with those on Beaumont and Belgrave.
So by the 1930s my view from the dining room had pretty much gone and with it a little bit of that once rural Chorlton.
Pictures; South of Beech Road in 1907 from the OS map of Manchester , 1907, and the same in 1934 from Geographia Street Plans, 1934 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*The story of house,
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
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