What did you find in the cellar of Hough End Hall in the summer of 1965?

If you are of a certain age you will probably remember playing in Hough End Hall.

Of course we are talking about the 1960s when the place had long been abandoned as a family home and was yet to become a restaurant.

Back then it was an adventure playground for many of the children roundabout and bit by bit their memories are surfacing of what the Hall was like and what they did there.

Now everyone has their own stories and Ian who would have been about 11 remembered the cellar and what seemed “to be a gigantic set of leather and wooden bellows along with two stone fire places one of which was propped up against the wall and the other resting on the floor.

We tried to get the bellows to work and when that failed wrapped a rope around the tall fireplace and swung from side to side.

There were also big bags of what looked like salt.

And when we tired of the cellar we went on to play in the valleys of the roof.”

Ian is the first to admit that given that it was a long time ago, “my take on what I remember may be different to others, and perhaps the bellows could have been smaller or even larger.”

Either way it is a fascinating glimpse into a period in the Hall’s history which has sat in the shadows for too long.

But more of those memories are now coming to the surface and in time I hope for more.

Location, Hough End Hall, Chorlton, Manchester

Pictures; the Hall in the mid 1960s from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/