Stolen in the night ........... with little concern for the historic and private loss

Now I know I shouldn’t be surprised of the news that a priceless collection of Great War memorabilia has been stolen.

We all at some time have to face just such an event, but the theft in the night of a collection of cap badges from men who served their country with distinction is unforgiveable.

More so because they were part of a collection which had been carefully researched by their owner David Harrop.

There is of course the possibility that they will be recovered, but I doubt it.  They will I expect have made their way to a dealer or collector with few scruples.

More than that the collection runs the risk of being broken up and sold separately.

But either way they will never be displayed with the same sense of history and degree of research that followed their time as part of David’s collection.

Other items were also looted like a pillar box similar to this one carrying the initials VR.

So there you have it, not a very nice story to close a Sunday evening.







Pictures; cap badges similar to those stolen from the collection of David Harrop

Welcome back Bramall Hall ....... two years, £1.6 million and it is open for business

No doubt somewhere over this week end there will be a sign welcoming the curious and the interested back into Bramall Hall.

It has been closed for a major restoration project which according to Stockport Council was funded from  a  “£1.6million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.  

The impressive plaster ceiling in the Withdrawing Room has been repaired and re-painted, objects and items of furniture have been conserved and hundreds of panes of historic, stained glass that were dirty and broken now sparkle in the sunshine. 

Better facilities for visitors include modern toilets and a platform lift to improve access between levels on the ground floor. New interpretation will tell people about the hall’s fascinating stories through film, virtual tours, interactives and a giant family tree.

Major building development has converted the rundown and under-used stable block into a modern facility for visitors that now houses a gift-shop, small visitor centre and classroom facilities.

The adjacent café is a bright and airy space with a glass frontage that opens onto the walled garden for outside dining.”*

So to mark the reopening of the Hall Peter has done one of his paintings.

It is not a place I have visited, well not yet but I think it will be on the summer todo list.

After all it is is "a Tudor manor house in Bramhall, [which] is  a timber-framed building, the oldest parts of which date from the 14th century, with later additions from the 16th and 19th centuries. 

The house, which functions as a museum, and its 70 acres (28 ha) of landscaped parkland with lakes, woodland, and gardens are open to the public."**

I could say more and there is lots more but I will leave you to find that out by following the links.

Sadly I won’t be able to get in over the weekend as all tickets for entry into the Hall on Saturday July 30 and Sunday July 31 have completely sold out but normal service will resume on Tuesday.


Painting; Bramall Hall, © 2016 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

*Bramhall Hall, http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/leisureculture/museumsandgalleries/bramallhall/?view=Standard

** Bramall Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramall_Hall

On Mauldeth Road West with a ghost sign

Now there are a growing number of us who are fascinated by ghost signs.

These are the painted signs dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries which advertised products and businesses, most of which have long since disappeared.

So these fading and often peeling names are all that are left of a bit of our past.

All of which is a lead in to Neil Simpson’s picture of the gable end on Mauldeth Road West which he proudly told me, “look what I found on the side of a shop on Mauldeth Road West - a Ghost Sign for Wills Gold Flake Cigarettes for Andrew Simpson."

And then went on to supply a link to Wills Gold Flake.

And that pretty much is that leaving me only to thank Neil who has come up with some pretty neat ghost signs over the years.

Location; Manchester

Picture; ghost sign 2016, courtesy of Neil Simpson



*Wills Gold Flake, https
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.D._%26_H.O._Wills

Jazz in the Square

More pictures of live music in St Anns's Square during the Manchester Jazz Festival.













Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson




Full festival line up: http://www.manchesterjazz.com/programme/
Official festival playlist: https://soundcloud.com/manchesterjazz/sets/mjf-2016

Revisiting the Great War how we see that war and how it was perceived in the past

I have never doubted the sacrifice made during the Great War.

It reached into almost every home and for many the legacy was the loss of a loved one and in some cases more than one and that sacrifice is there in the memorials for the fallen across the country.

They range from small plaques in quiet village churches to large brass polished lists of the men who fought in office buildings along with the more public monuments like stone crosses and our own Cenotaph.

There is as they say a certainty in that national sacrifice but what I continue to revisit are the causes of that war and the numerous differing interpretations of whether Britain should have joined a continental conflict in the August of 1914.

Now I belong to that generation whose view of the war was coloured by Joan Littlewoods’s Oh What a Lovely War and the fact that I grew up in the 1960s which to a young mind pretty much challenged all the conventional wisdoms.

That said as I have grown older I realize that every decade does exactly the same thing and the critical analysis of why we fought and the value of the war were being hotly debated soon after it was all over.

Now there is nothing wrong with that.  History is not set in stone, fresh discoveries, new scholarship and changing ideas mean that every event is open to reinterpretation which is what makes the study of the past both fun and rewarding.

I was brought up with that premises that here was a war of rival imperialisms where the growing antagonisms of the European Great Powers and Japan led to a costly arms race, the creation of two armed camps and the possibility that one or two of these countries fearful that they would lose superiority would strike first.

It sat alongside that even more simple interpretation that in an age when the vast armies of Continental Europe were moved by trains, the train timetable imposed a logic to events.

So that once the decision to move an army up to the border had been made this would have to be matched by others and in the war rooms and Cabinet offices even the suggestion that this might be about to happen called for the issue of mobilization orders.

It was and for me still is an attractive interpretation and took on more validity during the Cold War when the two super powers contemplated a nuclear exchange of weapons even using them as bargaining gambits while at the same time carrying on their conflict using smaller countries to fight proxy wars.

So here and I don’t claim it will always be over original will be few short posts on the mood of Manchester on that August of 1914 and on how that war was seen at various times during the conflict and since.

Tomorrow, Revisiting the Great War nu 1 ............ who spoke in favour?

Pictures; A fag after a fight, 1916, Daily Mail Official War Pictures, and Mother, Why Doesnt Daddy Come Home? date unknown, Bamforth & Co, Holmfirth, the Patriot Series nu 1888, from the collection of David Harrop

Levenshulme Library

Now it easy to forget that that parts of south Manchester elected to join the city having spent a big chunk of time as self governing local authorities.

Levenshulme Library, 2012

So it was that Burnage ,Chorlton, Didsbury and Withington who voted to join Manchester in 1904 and Levenshulme five years later.

It was a decision that for  many rate payers was a decision too good to turn down and included the promise of better provision, and cheaper rates and utility bills.

As far as the 1904 "4" were concerned this included the building of new public libraries.

But in the case of Levenshulme they already had one, which has been opened in 1904.

The Levenshulme Urban District Council had successfully gained a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to build the library which cost £2,500 and according to the Manchester Guardian had “two special features worthy of mention. 

There is a room set apart for juveniles, in which, besides papers and periodicals, such games as chess, draughts and dominoes may be enjoyed.  

Adjoining the main reading-room and reached through a vestibule door is along veranda where people may sit and read in fine weather.”

And that is about all except to say I think Peter's painting captures it perfectly.

Location;Levenshulme

Painting;Levenshulme Library, © 2012 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Didsbury Pubs .............. stories, paintings and a bit more ........ nu 3 the Wellington

A short series reflecting on some of the Didsbury pubs Peter has painted and I have spent time in.

I have to confess it will be a long series given that both of us over the years can claim to have been in all of them, although never I hasten to add been thrown out.

This is the Wellington.

Now I say the Wellington but the place has undergone both name changes and a slight change of use.

There will be some who can claim to have drunk in there when it was the Wellington and may even have the beer mat.  Lots more will remember it as the Cavalcade and I have yet to eat in it since it has become a restaurant.

That said there will be no one who will remember the previous building which was a far more modest affair and boasted a bowling green.

So there you have it, a little bit of pub history which just leaves me to do the outrageous plus....... you find Peter’s painting in our book Didsbury Through Time, available at Morton’s Bookshop, and at the this very moment we are working on Manchester Pubs, The stories behind the Doors

Location; Didsbury



Painting; the Wellington © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Nicolas Road ........... sometime between 1909 and 1914

What became known as “new Chorlton” but historically was Martledge is often overlooked when collections of pictures of where we live are published.

After all by the early 20th century much of the area had become rows of houses, some larger and more distinguished than others, but still just rows of houses.

 The remaining interesting cottages, farmhouses, and old pubs as well as the open fields were to the south around the old village and green. So such a scene as this is unlikely capture the imagination or the curiosity of anyone looking back at the township in the past.

And yet here there is a story. It is Nicolas Road sometime between 1909 and 1914. We can be as exact as that.

 The postcard of the scene was sent in 1914, but most of the right side of the road had still to be built in 1909.

What is more it is sometime in the morning. The sun is lighting up the houses on the western side of the road, and there are delivery vans in the distance. Judging by the leaves on the trees and the children posing for the camera it might even be the summer holidays.

These were the new houses for the middling families who had been steadily moving into Chorlton since the last two decades of the 19th century. So behind the doors on this western side were clerks, commercial travellers, draughtsman, engineers, and managers.

At number 18 in the spring of 1911 lived the Jackson’s. John William was 41 and a book keeper working for the railway. He had married his wife Mary in 1902 and they had one son, Frank aged 7 and also sharing the six roomed house was Mary’s widowed mother.

John was not native to Chorlton, he had been born in Salford and a decade earlier his family had been living on Keppel Road, attracted I guess by the fine new houses close to the railway station and within easy walk of the countryside.

His immediate neighbours included a signalman for the Great Central Railway, a salesman and chemist. Most had young families and none were born here.

Looking again at the picture there is a temptation to try and fit the children to the families on the road but I doubt that this is sound history.

It would be more rewarding to reflect on the Chorlton they knew and how it would change during the childhood.

 Much of the land to the south was still farmland and behind them was the new brickworks. The romantic in me envies them that rural landscape with its opportunities for long summer rambles down towards the Mersey.

Then again there will be plenty who would point to the downside of life just a few years before the Great War. But that is another story.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

1932 one morning on Beech Road

It is a bright summer’s day in 1932 and judging by the shadows sometime in the morning.

This is another of those pictures of Beech Road in the years between the wars. In some ways it is familiar enough but of course there is a total absence of cars and the widespread use of bikes.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Manchester Jazz Festival, another one of the things the city does well

It will soon be the Manchester Jazz Festival again* that season of live outside music in some of the finest squares the city has to offer.

I fell across it purely by accident on a lunch time Tuesday many years ago.

So for no other reason than I like jazz, enjoy listening to it in our city, here are some of the pictures of memorable days in St Ann’s Square.

This year the festival starts on July 22 and lasts till the 31st.

82 gigs, 550 artists from the UK and abroad.

There are 9 venues, RNCM - Royal

Northern College of Music, Band on the Wall, Matt and Phreds, Manchester Central Library, HOMEmcr, Albert Square, Manchester, The Midland Hotel, The Portico Library and St. Ann's Church. and a heap of good music.

Location; Manchester





Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Full festival line up: http://www.manchesterjazz.com/programme/

Official festival playlist: https://soundcloud.com/manchesterjazz/sets/mjf-2016  

A Chorlton landmark ................ the new window of the Central Church

Now I like it when you can write about people you know who are contributing to the life of Chorlton.

The church, 2015

So here is Peter’s painting of the Central Church featuring the stained glass window created by Stephen Raw.

I have known Peter and Stephen for over thirty years and so it is nice to be able to feature both in the same story.

And for those who have been around the block a few times this will always be the Macfadyn Church.

Today only the hall remains.

The church was demolished in the 1970s.

It was one of the many churches built in the township as the population grew in the final decades of the 19th century and like those on High Lane and Wilbraham Road did not quite last a century before declining congregations  made amalgamations, rationalizations and eventual demolition the fate of many church groups in Chorlton.

The church, circa 1904

“The Chorlton cum Hardy Congregational church started its life in the Masonic Hall in September 1879 under the joint control of the Chorlton Road and Stretford churches. In June 1881 Chorlton Road, under Rev. J. A. Macfadyen, M.A., D.D., assumed full responsibility. 

A school-chapel was opened for worship in September 1883 and forty seven members enrolled at the new church in December. 

Its first pastor, Rev. Robert Mitchell, was appointed in June 1885. With the death of Dr. Macfadyen, in 
1889, the church's connection with Chorlton Rd. came to an end, but in October 1890 a fund was started to build a new church in memory of Dr. Macfadyen, - the Macfadyen Memorial Church, whose opening service was on 25 October 1894.

The church, 2015

In October 1972 with the union of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches it became known as Macfadyen United Reformed Church. In October 1975 Macfadyen United Reformed Church and McLaren Baptist Church decided to worship and work together as Chorlton Central Church.”*

All of which puts our picture postcard at some time after 1894 and more exactly after 1903 by which time Holland Road had been cut and the houses built.

Peter’s painting was done this year and Andy Robertson’s of the work in progress dates from last year.

Painting; the Central Church, © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Pictures; the Macfadyn Church, circa 1904 from the Lloyd Collection, and the church in 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson.

*The National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=127-m186&cid=0#0

Who remembers the Welcome Inn? Memories requested

 I went looking for a photograph of the Welcome Inn and instead only found adverts for the new flats that occupy the site.

The idea was to do a then and now and invite comments about the pub in its heyday.

I can remember watching the crowds walk down past our house on Well Hall Road on a Sunday after I guess a night in the pub.

Later still it was where I watched one of the first colour transmissions on BBC 2, which was a tennis match.

Now tennis bores the pants off me but there was a real novelty value in watching it in colour.

I think we only went the once and then a few more times after that.

And then it was gone.

Picture; courtesy of Jean Lowe

Buying your postage stamps on Todd Lane before catching the 16. 30 from Victoria

Now Corporation Street is one of the more fascinating streets in the city.

It started at Market Street crossed Cannon Street and ran on to the junction with Fennel Street and Withy Grove at what was called Hydes Cross.

Later it was extended to Ducie Bridge where it joined Cheetham Hill Road and continued on as a much narrower street to Ashley Lane.

And along its route it rubbed up against Hanging Ditch, Long Millgate and a shedload of small alleys and courts with names like Cockpit Hill, Hodson’s Square, McDonalsd’s Lane and Piggot’s Court, which in turn gave access to Back Tipping Lane, and Cromford Court.

All of which is an introduction to this Post Office sign which was located in Victoria Railway Station on top of a pillar box and pointed to the sub post-post office on Todd Street.

The building is still there although the Post Office has gone.

So now all we have is the sign which comes from David Harrop’s big collection of all things post office of which more I shall say another time.

Location Manchester

Picture; Post Office sign circa 1980, from the collection of David Harrop

The first statute to a woman in a century .............. a Manchester “woman of significance”

Now there is something really exciting about the plan to unveil a statute to Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester.

Cll Simcock & Helen Pankhurst, 2016

The original idea came from Councillor Andrew Simcock who last year launched a campaign to identify a Manchester “woman of significance” who would be remembered by a statute.

Andrew asked for suggestions and from the list Mancunians voted for Mrs Pankhurst.

And this week the project took another step forward with the invitation of 19 sculptors to a launch in the Town Hall which was also attended by Helen Pankhurst who is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Between them the 19 have created statues and busts of an array of people including Sir Alf Ramsay, Prince Charles, LS Lowry, Moss Side peace campaigner Erinma Bell, Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army, and my own favourite commemorating Sheffield’s Women of Streel.*

Each sculptor will produce a design from which a short list of six will be chosen, and each design will be auctioned at a fundraising dinner next March.

And it is important to stress that the entire cost of the project will be met by voluntary subscriptions and fund raising activities.

As Andrew has said, “fundraising for the statue now begins in earnest as there will be no public money spent on this project. This is particularly important at a time of public austerity and homeless people on the streets.

I would be delighted to hear from any business or individual who would like to sponsor the short listing competition. **

And Andrew has already done his own cycle ride across the country to raise funds.

All of which is consistent with the way that the City has funded public statues over the last two centuries.

The "19" with aAdrew and Helen

What perhaps makes this one a little different is that it is of a woman of whom there are few in the city and more importantly is about the contribution women made to the City.

The original list offered up some fascinating women from Margaret Aston and Mrs Annot Robinson to of course Mrs Pankhurst.

And in the course of the debates about who to choose people explored the lives and contributions of each woman and reflected on their collective role in the history of the City.

Nor will it stop there because during the course of the fund raising there will be fresh opportunities to swop stories and mount all sorts of projects which will culminate with the unveiling of the finished statue in St
Peter’s Square on International Women’s Day 2019.

Picture; the nineteen sculptors, Helen Pankhurst and Cllr Andrew Simcock, in front of the Charlotte Newson portrait of Pankhurst in the Town Hall, 2016 courtesy of Andrew Simcock

* Women of Steel ........... the memorial and a chance encounter with Martin Jenkins, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/women-of-steel-memorial-and-chance.html

**Cll Andrew Simcock, cllr.a.simcock@manchester.gov.uk

The day they celebrated the coming of peace in 1945

I feel it is time to feature some of the celebrations we have undertaken over the centuries.

 Here courtesy of Tom Turner was a street party celebrating peace in 1945 on Halstead Avenue.












Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Another story from Tony Goulding ....Lily Woodcock: (and six men) W.W. 2 Manchester Road Methodist’s Memorial.

During the present, focussing on the centenary of the Battle of the Somme I think it is only right to also recall that less than a quarter of a century after those horrors the world, in particular Europe was tearing itself apart again. 

War memorial at Manchester Road, Methodist’s Church Chorlton

As in the previous conflict Chorlton-cum-Hardy was to suffer its share in the losses similar to the many other communities throughout the United Kingdom.

This piece is offered as an attempt to shed light on the sacrifices made at that time. As I have already written about The Manchester Road Methodist’s memorial I decided to make its list of World War Two casualties the basis of this story.


The first name on the list is, to the best of my knowledge, the only female name recorded on a war memorial in Chorlton-cum-Hardy - Lily Woodcock.

My friend Linda, a fellow local history enthusiast, had remarked on this fact and it was that conversation which instigated this bit of research, thus making Lily’s story a doubly appropriate place to start.

Mrs. Lily Woodcock was killed in the “Christmas Blitz” of December, 1940. She died at the Dr. Rhodes Memorial Home, (1) Cavendish Road, West Didsbury on 23rd December, 1940, whilst serving as a British Red Cross Society nurse attached to a mobile first aid post. She was born Lily Head on 24th March, 1895 and had married Alfred Woodcock, a master plumber, at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Stockport Road, Levenshulme during the June quarter of 1929.

Mrs. Woodcock had been widowed the previous year. In what must have been her  own harrowing “annus horribilis” she suffered the tragic loss of her young 34 year old step-daughter-in-law (also a Lillian) on the 7th June and was widowed only a day later 8th June, 1939.(2)

Woodcock family grave L346 Non-conformist section

The family grave in Southern Cemetery records more of this family’s sad history. It shows that Lily was her husband Alfred’s second wife, his first wife, Louisa Ann, having passed away, aged 45, on 24th December, 1926.

Apparently Alfred and Louisa Ann had, had the misfortune of having to bear the loss in infancy of twin boys, Alfred and Cecil, whilst they were residing in Glossop, Derbyshire in October, 1907.

In 1933, Alfred and Lily were living at 72, Sandy Lane. One of their sons Frank, also a plumber was close by at 37, Whalley Avenue.   Another son, Vincent, an “Electro-constructional draughtsman”, his new bride Lillian and their new-born daughter, Ruth were living away in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. It seems that following Alfred’s death in 1939 Frank and Lily exchanged residences. By this time also, the recently bereaved; Vincent was living with his in-laws in Thornton Cleveleys. (3)

Of the other six names on the Manchester Road Methodist’s memorial four served in an air service. Three belonged to the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve, one a Flight Officer and two Sergeants: the fourth a Leading Airman with the Royal Navy’s Air Service. The two “odd men out” were Kenneth Hayward who was a Staff Sergeant with the Intelligence Corps and Geoffrey Norris Hobson, a gunner with the Royal Artillery.
Cecil George Alway: was a Sergeant in 115 sqd. R.A.F. volunteer reserve; who died over Germany on 15th August, 1941.

He was born in Bristol in 1921 to Rev. George William and Lorna May (née. Yelf)  Cecil’s father was a much travelled Methodist preacher who in 1939 was fulfilling his mission as the resident minister at Manchester Road Methodist Church. The Always’s occupied 14, Holland (now Zetland) Road during their stay in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Clifford Allan Bell: was the other sergeant of the R.A.F. volunteer reserve, who was killed on 20th May, 1942. Clifford’s body was never recovered and his is one of the 20,456 Commonwealth Air Force personnel who died during World War 2 and have no known grave.

 Runnymede Memorial (ex. C.W.G.C.Site)

Sergeant Bell was in 12 sqd.  R.A.F.V.R. and was only 20 when he was killed. His parents were Victor Allan, an incorporated accountant, and Elsie (née Barnes) who lived at 1, Ellesmere Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Arthur Hawker: Is also one of those commemorated at Runnymede, a Flying Officer with the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve 137 sqd. He was killed, aged 25, on 21st May, 1944. Arthur’s parents were Charles Henry and Jane Ann (née Lightburn). The family lived at 79, Great Stone Road, Stretford where his father kept a Fish and Chip shop.

Brian Lambert Rowntree:  was born, in Middlesbrough, in the September quarter of 1924 to Sydney Braithwaite and Lillie (née Richardson). The family settled in South Manchester in about 1930 and, in 1939, were residing at 67, Kensington Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Brian’s father being an engineering draughtsman.

A Leading Airman in the Royal Naval Air Service, Brian died on 1st May, 1944 while stationed at HMS Vulture a naval air station based at St. Merryn in Cornwall.  He is interred in Southern Cemetery S 5576 (C.of E. section) and his grave is marked by this quite unusual C.W.G.C. headstone;

 It reveals that he shares his final resting place with his brother-in law George Herbert Clough, (4) a driver with the army service corps who died on 11th October, 1940.

Geoffrey Norris Hobson: served as a Gunner with the 25th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery who was killed during the breakout from the Normandy landing areas on the 26th June, 1944. Geoffrey’s parents were Percy Norris and Eveline (née Hammerton) who lived at 20, Hillingdon Road, Stretford, from where his father worked as commercial traveller for a flour producer.

Gunner Hobson was born in Manchester in the June quarter of 1923. On 3rd March, 1917, Geoffrey’s brother, Neville, had been born at 78, Nicholas Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Kenneth Hayward: died in Tunisia, North Africa on 25th February, 1943. He was a Staff Sergeant with The Intelligence Corps – 55 Field Security Section. S/Sergeant Hayward was born in Manchester in 1912 (June qtr.) and married Rene (née Leigh) in Hyde, Cheshire on 20th July, 1940  His father, William Dawson Hayward, was  a clerk in a tea warehouse – his mother was Gertrude (née Hartley) who was raised in Moss Side where her father, Thomas, was a “traveller in timber” on Moss Lane East. Gertrude’s elder brother,

Herbert Percy, became a successful merchant who in 1911 was living on Sidbury Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

© Tony Goulding 2016

Pictures; supplied by Tony Goulding

Notes:

1) Dr. Rhodes Memorial Home was originally opened, in 1910, as a home for 150 children who would previously have been accommodated in the nearby Workhouse. The new building was named to honour the recently deceased Dr. John Milson Rhodes; a nationally important figure in the movement to reform workhouse conditions. Around 1937, it closed as a children’s home and was taken over by “Swinton House School” and for a time existed as the (now somewhat politically incorrect) “Manchester Residential Home for Crippled Children”. The building later housed the “Shawgrove Special School (for children with visual impairment;)” this school closed in August, 2004 and for the last decade Cavendish Road, primary School have been using the premises as an annexe.

2) Interestingly, in a co-incidence with a high potential for causing confusion, one of the other victims on the night of the Christmas Blitz on 23rd December, 1940 was also an Alfred Woodcock. He died at; 13, Lower Russell Street, Miles Platting with his wife Ellen Frances.

3) Vincent Woodcock’s life after provides a somewhat colourful sequel. In an infamous court case, during March and April, 1944 at the Old Bailey he appeared as a witness for the defence. This was trial of the medium Mrs. Helen Duncan, the last person to be tried and convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Vincent Woodcock's later life."

Mrs. Duncan was arrested in Portsmouth on 19th January, 1944 and her 7 day trial later that year was a sensational one at which various defence witnesses claimed to have seen manifestation of among others Mary Queen of Scots and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Vincent gave evidence that he had attended 19 séances at which his deceased wife had appeared to him on one occasion removing the wedding ring from his finger, placing it on his sister-in-laws finger and informing him “this is what I want for the sake of our little girl Ruth.” At a separate reading he stated that his step-mother had appeared “complete with her head wounds sustained in the Manchester Blitz.” The final chapter of this sad story came with Vincent's death, less than a year after this court case, in March quarter,1945.

4) George Herbert Clough was married to Brian L. Rowntree’s oldest sister Elaine L. The wedding took place at St. Clement’s Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the summer of 1940. His widow was to re-marry, in the March quarter of 1946, a George Bell at St. Werburgh’s Church, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

How long before the Tatton Arms becomes a memory?

It has been a landmark on this bit of the Mersey for a very long time.

But it closed in 2007 and as the phrase goes has “an uncertain future.”

And I have got to say that Andy has caught its slow decline very well, standing behind that wire fencing.

Like its neighbour just a little west it once had a lucrative trade in ferrying people across the Mersey, and when the bridge was built thirsty travellers had to pay a toll.

I don’t know when the toll was abolished but I am guessing it will be at the same as the charge on the bridge by Jackson’s Boat which was in the 1940s.

That said as later as the 1830s when Jackson’s Boat was the Greyhound the publican still had the right to charge people to ferry them across the river.

And that was despite the fact that the old wooden bridge erected in 1818 by Sam Wilton was offering a safer alternative.

Still his bridge may have gone when the new one was erected in the 1880s, but the “Boat” still offers up a pint while the Tatton Arms is now dry.

Location; Northenden

Picture; the Tatton Arms, 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson

More lost scenes on Beech Road

Marmalade closed a few years ago having replaced the Nose, the off license Threshers also closed and just before it did I took this shot of cafe life on Beech Road. In the same decade, Brian the Book closed and became Diamond Dogs which has also now been lost to us.
Pictures of Marmalade, Beech Road from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Who was H S Chips and what was he doing to be awarded this medal in 1916?

Now sometimes you just have to admit defeat.  

It’s not helped by the fact that I am not a sporty person and so the initials CFS coupled with the scene of a rugby match do not help identify the medal or the event.

The inscription on the back which would usually help runs, CFS, H S Chips, 1916 and the name Ellen Brothers who were the silversmiths.

But that is as far as it goes.

A search for H S Chips has proved a blank, Ellen Brothers threw up a few possible leads but CFS ran into  a brick wall.

So there it is, but I am not undaunted because I know that someone will come up with an answer, which may be just a bit of a clue or the full blown thing.

And I know David Harrop who owns it would be very pleased with whatever information bounces back once the post is out there.














Picture; medal awarded to H S Chips, 1916 courtesy of David Harrop

In Warrington on a July day working out how best to take the Barley Mow

Yesterday we were promised what would be the best day for catching the sun.

And that was pretty much the case although there were great chucks of the day when the clouds did their best to both hide the sun and threaten rain.

But there was enough sun, the day was warm and the result was more pictures of Warrington a place I have only been to once before.

Now with no idead where I was going I came across the Barley Mow which I am told is a "historic 15th century half-timbered building in centre of modern shopping development. Grade 2 Plus listing status.*




All of which is interesting but didn't help me get a good picture.

*WHAT?UB, https://whatpub.com/pubs/CNC/268/barley-mow-warrington

Location; Warrington

Picture; The Barley Mow, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

My Salford ........... nu 3 those flats

Now I don’t claim that any of the following short series of pictures of Salford are magnificent photographs but I like them.

Every series must have a glass building and a reflection.








Location; Salford

Picture; Salford 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Didsbury Pubs .............. stories, paintings and a bit more ........ nu 2 the Didsbury Hotel

A short series reflecting on some of the Didsbury pubs Peter has painted and I have spent time in.

I have to confess it will be a long series given that both of us over the years can claim to have been in all of them, although never I hasten to add been thrown out.

This is the Didsbury Hotel.

The Didsbury Hotel was built around 1855 and incorporated an older pub on the same site called the Church Inn which early in the 19th century was known as the Ring of Bells.

Originally the arched entrance with its garage sign advertised the bowling green which was behind the pub and to the  left.

So there you have it, a little bit of pub history which just leaves me to do the outrageous plus....... you find Peter’s painting in our book Didsbury Through Time, available at Morton’s Bookshop, and at the this very moment we are working on  Manchester Pubs, The stories behind the Doors

Location; Didsbury






Painting; the Didsbury Hotel  © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

In celebration of trainspotting

Now if you grew up in the 1950s train spotting was something you did, was not the butt of jokes and was a way of meeting new people and having a bit of fun which costs next to nothing.

That said for all sorts of reasons I never got into it but I did have a model train set which was almost the same thing.

All of which is why I am writing about BBC Four’s Trainspotting Live which I fell across this evening.

It was a delightful hour of railway trains, people sending in pictures of locomotives whizzing past them on platforms and heaps more.

It was that mix of eccentricity and enthusiasm which just makes for good telly and of course is a slice of our history.

Location; a railway station near you

Picture; Planet at Liverpool Roads Railway Station, 2008

*BBC Four Trainspotting Live, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xx9tx

On Liverpool Road pondering the fate of nu 31

Now I have often wondered the fate of number 31 Liverpool Road.

It was a place I often went into for the odd bar of chocolate and then it closed, and never reopened.

And so as you do I went looking into its history.  It looks to be a bit of infill which was built soon after 1794.

Back then this stretch of what was called Priestner Street looked out on an orchard  which boarded what os now Tonman Street.

In 1850 it was the home of Mr John Browning , furniture broker, and a full half century later was the residence of Miss Mary Ann Sturgess also a furniture broker but while she was there at the end of 1910 she had gone by the following April.

So I have to be content nu 29a which was occupied by the Dean family who lived in three rooms and the White Lion at the corner of Collier Street.

Here pulling the pints were Harry and Lena Dean who were assisted by three staff.  It was a big place with twelve rooms and was a direct contrast with the house on the other side of Collier Street which also sold beer but consisted of just three rooms into which were squeezed Mr and Mrs Williams their four children and Sarah Jane Ransefield their “domestic.”

All of which means I have strayed a bit from no 31 which I have discovered has a planning application in to turn it in to “an art gallery/shop at ground floor and a residential apartment on the first and second floors, including installation of new shop front and replacement of windows to the rear elevation and the first floor front elevation.”*

Pictures; Liverpool Road, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

*Manchester City Council Planning, 109234/FO/2015/C1 http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/

When Mr Robinson started a brewery at the back of the Unicorn on Lower Hillgate ...... stories of breweries nu 1

Now in the course of writing the new book on Manchester pubs you do come across a lot of breweries.*

The brewery, 2015

Some like Kays Atlas Brewery which supplied the beer for the Castle on Oldham Street have long gone, while other’s like Robinson’s of Stockport are still in business and its their lorries which pull up outside the Castle today.

Nor is that a coincidence because Robinsons, took the Atlas over in 1929 and so it’s fitting that Peter should have painted the brewery in 2015.

And as you do I went looking for their history which began when William Robinson bought the Unicorn on Lower Hillgate in 1838.

He was still there three years later and seems to have found a good spot for a pub.

His immediate neighbours included Joseph Faulkner, the butcher, Isaac Moss, Mary Albany and Thomas Clay and between their three properties there were seventeen adults some who were no doubt familiar with the inside of the Unicorn.

In 1849 Mr Robinson’s son took over the Unicorn and began brewing beer in the yard behind the pub.  He may well have been assisted by his wife Clarissa and Sarah Chadwick his sister in law.

The rest is as they say brewing success with the family enlarging the brewery adding warehouses, pubs and rival breweries, all of which is well documented on their own site.**

I of course will now turn back to the book.  Peter long ago completed all the paintings of the pubs and I am deep in telling their stories.

And unlike other pub books we want to tell the stories of the people, the building and the area they are situated in.

Painting; Robinsons Brewery © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*A new book on Manchester Pubs, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs

**The Robinson Story, https://www.robinsonsbrewery.com/about-us/our-heritage

Because not all of us now live in Eltham .........

It is just one of those things that not all of us still live where were grew up.

Now that can be a good thing because it usually means you have forged a new life as a grown up, had a shed full of new experiences, met heaps of new people and possibly settled down with someone you could never have met at home.

On the other hand at times the pull of a place like Eltham can be very strong, it comes and goes but never really leaves you.

The trouble is when I think back to Eltham and in particular to Well Hall I know I am pretty much dealing with a moment frozen in time, sometime between 1964 and ‘74.

A time before McDonalds, when we still had a book shop on the corner opposite the parish church, when the railway station was that old and rustic half timbered affair and when you could still get a pint in the King’s Arms, the Castle and the Crown and because I am on one there was still a place beside the Library where you could pay your electric bill.

And yes someone will mutter, when there were still three picture houses in Eltham and the swimming baths were just down the hill.

All of which I know borders on nostalgic tosh but even I like to indulge myself, so here are a collection of Ryan’s pictures which point up what I remember and some of what I don’t.

We had washed up in Well Hall in the 1960s, and in the middle of the next decade I was married, pursuing a career and living in one of the great cities of the North.

So a thank you is in order to Ryan and for all the people who regularly offer up pictures of Eltham.

The entrance to the church hasn’t changed, but the post office has morphed into a pub and survived when older and more established ones have closed and occasionally bits of our past have also stood the test of time.

Of these it is the ghost sign “Commit no nuisance” that most appeals to me.

Once it had the power of a byelaw behind it and no doubt stern police officers to ensure that no one transgressed the command.

Today I doubt anyone gives it a second glance and if they either smile or wonder what possible nuisance might someone commit in Eltham.

Thinking back I can offer up a few but that like most of my memories is perhaps best left in the past.

Location; around Eltham, 2016

Pictures; Eltham in 2016 from the collection of Ryan Ginn