Well after 183 years that sad looking house on Beech Road has gone.
It was the home of Mr Daniel Sharpe who lived there from certainly 1841 and maybe earlier and now leaves only one example of the sort of house built for the people of plenty here in Chorlton in the early 19th century.*
We do have a few farmhouses which will be mid to late 18th century but that is it.
The very big houses one of which stood on the corner of Beech Road and the other between Barlow Moor Road and Corkland Road went at the beginning of the 20th century and that other fine middling property by Acres Road went one night a decade or so ago.
Of course Mr Sharpes‘s house had as one commentator put it become an eyesore, having suffered two fires and decades of neglect.
But it was once a fine house and deserved better.
I don’t know when Mr Sharpe moved in but it will have been around the time of his marriage in 1833.
He was a wine merchant and appears in the property on the 1841 census.
Sadly his wife died in 1846 leaving him a widow until his own death in 1861.
Although that is not the full picture because in 1852 he married his servant Ann Bailey who was much younger than him.
The marriage seemed not to be successful for nine years later she is no longer with him and in his will made shortly before he died having left her nothing he adds a codicil and awards her a small sum of money.
It is a story I will return to.
The house has had a varied set of occupants since then, gaining the jutty out bit at the end of the 19th century and even featured in a television series.
There was one planning application in to convert it into a mix of residential and retail but nothing seems to have happened to the plan.
And now it has gone. There will be those who shrug and say with some justification that the community showed no interest in its preservation and given its years of neglect demolition was the kindest solution.
But that ignores the fact that for years it was difficult to ascertain who owned it, and even given what might have been structural issues, some nearby properties have been renovated and so saved.
And that is all I am going to say. I shall await the verdict of the people of Chorlton and just thank Alexx for being in the right place to record the demise of Mr Sharpe's fine country house on what was Chorlton Row.
Location, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Pictures; a demolition in progress, 2016, courtesy of Alexx O’Shea, and sometime between 1985-87 from the collection of Tony Walker
*Daniel Sharpe and 131 Beech Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Daniel%20Sharpe%20and%20131%20Beech%20Road
 |
| Half gone, 2016 |
We do have a few farmhouses which will be mid to late 18th century but that is it.
The very big houses one of which stood on the corner of Beech Road and the other between Barlow Moor Road and Corkland Road went at the beginning of the 20th century and that other fine middling property by Acres Road went one night a decade or so ago.
 |
| Still a home with historic promise, circa 1985-87 |
But it was once a fine house and deserved better.
I don’t know when Mr Sharpe moved in but it will have been around the time of his marriage in 1833.
He was a wine merchant and appears in the property on the 1841 census.
Sadly his wife died in 1846 leaving him a widow until his own death in 1861.
Although that is not the full picture because in 1852 he married his servant Ann Bailey who was much younger than him.
 |
| Not a lot left, 2016 |
It is a story I will return to.
The house has had a varied set of occupants since then, gaining the jutty out bit at the end of the 19th century and even featured in a television series.
There was one planning application in to convert it into a mix of residential and retail but nothing seems to have happened to the plan.
And now it has gone. There will be those who shrug and say with some justification that the community showed no interest in its preservation and given its years of neglect demolition was the kindest solution.
But that ignores the fact that for years it was difficult to ascertain who owned it, and even given what might have been structural issues, some nearby properties have been renovated and so saved.
And that is all I am going to say. I shall await the verdict of the people of Chorlton and just thank Alexx for being in the right place to record the demise of Mr Sharpe's fine country house on what was Chorlton Row.
Location, Beech Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Pictures; a demolition in progress, 2016, courtesy of Alexx O’Shea, and sometime between 1985-87 from the collection of Tony Walker
*Daniel Sharpe and 131 Beech Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Daniel%20Sharpe%20and%20131%20Beech%20Road
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