At the time I was very happy with the research but sometimes you can get it very wrong so as a corrective here is the original with a link to the correction which points out with the help of John and Lesley that what I say here was Wilbraham Road was in fact Manchester Road.
We are approaching Chorlton along Wilbraham Road with the station just over the bridge on our right.
I can’t be exactly sure of the date but it will be sometime in the summer of 1913.
Now I can be fairly confident of that because during the early part of 1913 the tram had come to Whalley Range.
The Alexander Road service was extended to Wilbraham Road on February 19th 1913 and then to Egerton Road on May 9th of the same year. This was the terminus for the next five months until the railway bridge had been strengthened and the track laid to join the Barlow Moor Road line.
This last part of the network from Whalley Range into Chorlton was opened on October 13th.*
And for those of a tram disposition, this pretty much completed the tram routes to Chorlton from Manchester, leaving only the building of the tram terminus on Barlow Moor Road in 1915, and the Seymour Grove line in 1921.
And even before that date it had been possible to catch the Belle Vue service, which ran via Brooks Bar along Upper Chorlton Road to Lane End and onto Southern Cemetery. This was extended to West Didsbury in the June of 1913 and from then on there was a circular route from town thorough Chorlton to Didsbury and back into the city.
These were the 45 and 46 services, and long after the trams had gone it was still possible to catch a bus doing the same journey.
Get the wrong one and instead of the short ride from Princess Street to Chorlton you got the long scenic route down Oxford Road through Fallowfield, Withington and west Didsbury, which was fine enough if you wanted to relive your student days with glimpses of the University, the Toast rack and the White Lion but tedious given that the 47 did it quicker.
But I have wandered off the point and so back to the picture.
Judging by the progress along the line I guess we must be in the summer of 1913.
The track has been laid and only the last stretch on the west side heading towards us from Barlow Moor Road needs to be filled in with a road surface.
It’s the detail I especially like which takes us back to a time now well gone. The upturned hand cart which you see so often in pictures of the period and the night watchman’s hut and brazier is a reminder that until quite recently someone had the job of sitting through the night in front of the red hot coals minding the site.
They are an untidy collection of posters advertising everything from Seymour Mead’s butter, to Oxo and variety acts.
My own favourite is the one for Comet Ale and stout.
This was brewed by Walker & Homfrays Ltd, at Woodside Brewery in Salford who also controlled the Manchester Brewery Company and along with many public houses in Manchester and Salford. Walker & Homfrays went on to take control of the Stockport based Daniel Clifton & Company and in 1920 founded the Moss Side Brewery Company and the Palatine Bottling Company.
And round about the time that the tram track was being completed the Horse & Jockey on the green was selling Comet ales and stouts advertising them on the wall of the outhouse. Nor is this all, for the chairman of Walker & Homfrays was John Henry Davies who in 1902 took over Newton Heath which was a struggling football team with debts of £2, 670. Under his control the team changed its name to Manchester United and in 1910 moved to a new ground at Old Trafford.
But that as I so often say is another story and I suspect for someone else to tell.
Picture; from the Lloyd collection
*Lloyd, John, The Township of Chorlton cum Hardy, 1972
**On Manchester Road in 1911 ........... when I thought I was on Wilbraham Road ..... getting it wrong and owning up, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/on-manchester-road-when-tram-came-but.html
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