Friday 8 January 2016

On Barlow Moor Road with a mystery

Now here is a puzzle.

Leon's 2015
This is Peter’s painting of Leon’s on Barlow Moor Road and like many I have been coming here for years.

And each time I walk into the shop I ponder on the age of the building and a little mystery which I fist came across a few years ago.*

The building dates from the early 20th century which  know because it doesn’t show up on the street directory for 1911 but is there on the OS Map for 1934.

Of course a trawl of the directories for the early 20th century will offer up the date it was built and this I must do because of the small mystery of what is written above the door.

Addressal Printing Works 1959
For years I just assumed that the inscription “Established 1885” referred to when the building went up, but not so which of course offers up the mystery.

According to one source the building had been built as a laundry but by 1959 was the Addressall Printing Works.*

The obvious answer was that either the Printing Company or the laundry had been founded in 1885 but following that up has been less than successful.

The Addressal Printing Press is not listed in the early 20th century and we have no name for the laundry which pretty much means that at present we have reached a dead end.

I suppose Leon’s might have the answer and once I have the name of the first occupant that might furnish some more clues but until then I shall just have to wait, and leave you with one last clue that in some pictures there is a tall chimney stack at the back of the building which would suggest a boiler and a link to a laundry.

Well we shall just have to wait.

*.What was that building at 419 Barlow Moor Road? http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/what-was-that-building-at-419-barlow.html

Painting; Leon's Barlow Moor Road, © 2015 Peter Topping,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Picture; Addressall Printing Works (originally built for laundry), House adjoining used as office for printers, RE Stanley, m17530 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

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