So when did this building become the one we know on Needham Avenue?

The bakery, 1908

Now I am fully prepared for the debate that might unfold about this picture and the degree to which it could be the building at the bottom of Needham Avenue.

Until quite recently you had to pass it on the way to collect parcels and undelivered letters from the Post Office counter and like many I have often wondered about its origins and only recently discovered it had been built by a baker who gave his name to part of what is now Needham Avenue.

This was a Mr Wallworth who had started up in business on  Great Ancoats Street relocating to Chorlton at the beginning of the 20th century.*

I had always assumed that the present building was pretty much what Mr Wallworth had commissioned but not so.

The advert, 1908

Looking closely at the picture dated 1908 and comparing it with the present building it is possible to see
some similarities but that said it did undergo a radical redesign.

This had happened by the late 1950s and might well have been the work of Mr Parker who took over the bakery in the 1930s, if not earlier.

Now there will be people who might just remember that redesign.  My friend Ann visited the bakery in the 1950s with her father and there will be others whose memories may stretch back even earlier.

Well we shall see.

Picture; advert for F.W.Wallworth, Famaily and Wholessale Bakery, 1908 from the Souvenir of the Grand Wesleyan Church Bazaar, 1908, courtesy of Philip Lloyd

*Needham Avenue, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Needham%20Avenue