Walking through Levenshulme’s history part 2 ............. a police station, and some Victorian antique lace

Now somewhere I should be able to find the name of the architect who designed the police station in Levenshulme and with a bit of digging discover the exact date it was built.

I have passed it loads of times but it has taken Andy Robertson’s picture to focus my attention on the place.

It resembles pretty much the one on Beech Road which was built in 1885 and I guess will have been part of Lancashire Constabulary’s push to modernise its police stations.

The answer will lie in the archives of the Greater Manchester Police of the Lancashire County Archives, which will also offer up a date for when it closed.

That said there will be someone out there who knows and I hope supplies the answer.

For now it is just another of those buildings in Levenshulme which have long since become something else.

It’s neighbour the imposing old Town Hall deals in all manner of antiques and the bits and bobs that once were popular, then became unpopular and are again much sought after.

I should know on many a wet Saturday in the winter we have wandered through its many rooms.

For Tina who is Italian much of the stuff is fascinating and attractive, while for me the items bring back a shedful of memories and a realisation that what was once banal or commonplace has achieved collector’s status.

Who knows perhaps buried deep inside the cellars of the old police station will be some treasures as yet undiscovered.

Pictures; Levenshulme Police Station, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the station in 1959, H Milligan, m39759, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass