It was just a year ago that this building caught Andy Robertson’s interest.
It had for as long as I can remember been a lock up workshop and was typical of those small plots of land that never got a house and instead were turned over to light industrial use.
During the late 19th and early 20 centuries the Egerton and Lloyd Estates who owned most of the land in Chorlton began selling off small parcels to speculative builders, but never allowed the development of any heavy industry in the area.
And even the brick works on Longford Road was granted for only a short period which left just the bakery on Needham Avenue and the laundry on Crossland Road as the only thing we had close to a local factory.
But enterprising small traders did take charge of the odd stables and convert them into other use.
As for this plot I am not sure. The 1907 OS map shows it as open land which seems to have acquired the workshop by 1933.
Interestingly it did receive a direct hit from a fire bomb on October 10 1940 during a raid where lots of other incendiaries were dropped and a high explosive bomb in Newport Road almost directly behind our lock up.
And in the year since Andy wandered down Longford Road the builders have been busy and soon a little bit of our old past will have vanished forever.
Picture; Longford Road, March 2014 and 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson
*The way things go ...... looking for that last plot of land in Chorlton, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-way-things-go-looking-for-that-last.html
During the late 19th and early 20 centuries the Egerton and Lloyd Estates who owned most of the land in Chorlton began selling off small parcels to speculative builders, but never allowed the development of any heavy industry in the area.
And even the brick works on Longford Road was granted for only a short period which left just the bakery on Needham Avenue and the laundry on Crossland Road as the only thing we had close to a local factory.
As for this plot I am not sure. The 1907 OS map shows it as open land which seems to have acquired the workshop by 1933.
Interestingly it did receive a direct hit from a fire bomb on October 10 1940 during a raid where lots of other incendiaries were dropped and a high explosive bomb in Newport Road almost directly behind our lock up.
And in the year since Andy wandered down Longford Road the builders have been busy and soon a little bit of our old past will have vanished forever.
Picture; Longford Road, March 2014 and 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson
*The way things go ...... looking for that last plot of land in Chorlton, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-way-things-go-looking-for-that-last.html
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