The Essoldo, Blockbusters and plans for a new Morrisons on Barlow Moor Road

The cinema in 1959

Now when Mr Stanley wandered down Barlow Moor Road and snapped his picture of the Essoldo Cinema in March 1959, he pretty much set up the confusion which still exists today and allows some to mix up what was the Blockbusters store with the picture house.

And you can see why because the two were very close together.  Moreover the shape of the old Blockbuster is similar.

But that is about it.

Looking along to KFC and Blockbusters, 2014

The building was once accordling to Mr Stanley a  “public market place” which closed sometime before 1939 and then reopened as "E.Boydell and Co. Ltd, painting and finishing department, agricultural machinery.”

The OS map for 1934 shows the site with a building which conforms to the present footprint but with no name or explanation of its use.

In the fullness of time I shall wander off to the archives at Central Ref and work my through the street directories to establish when the market place was opened and closed and the dates of its change of use.

It was still operating as E.Boydell and Co. Ltd in 1959 because it was the next in Mr Stanley's collection of pictures of Barlow Moor Road, and though I should remember it back in the 1970s I don’t.

E Boydell & Co. Ltd in 1959

And it won’t be long before any such confusion between the old cinema and Blockbusters will be gone forever, because plans are in to demolish the building and in its place, the

“erection of three-storey mixed use building comprising 3no. retail units of (Class A1) retail space (762 square metres total) at ground floor with 12no. two bed apartments on above two floors following demolition of existing retail store”* and interestingly enough something of the history of the site including where the Essoldo once stood can be seen as well.**

All of which I suppose takes us full circle to that market place which I guess was constructed with an eye to the new estates which were opening up south of the Brook and out beyond Mauldeth Road West.

An empty Blockbusters, 2014

So there you have it, the much talked of Morrison’s new store looks to be on the cards and if you didn’t know of the plans now you do with a little of the story of the site before now.

As ever it was Andy’s picture of the old Blockbuster’s which set me off and yet again there he was with his camera recoding what will soon be gone.

Pictures; the empty Blockbuster’s 2014, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the Essoldo Cinema m09200 and  E.Boydell and Co. Ltd, m m17528,  March 1959,  R E Stanley, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester City Council Planning Applications, 105734/FO/2014/S1 http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=N5T7KZBC6K000

** Manchester City Council Planning Applications, http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage