One hundred and 45 years of one shop on High Lane

Sometime in the 1990s

Now this is 38 High Lane and it will be a shop many will remember.

For a long time it was a cycle shop and then had various attempts at being a grocers but never quite managed it and at the end it seemed there was little on the shelves and what there was you didn’t want.

But go back just a few decades and it was a thriving grocery and provision store, which given that it was the only one on High Lane gave it a prime position.

1959

Back in 1959 if you wanted a packet of tea, a bottle of milk or a tin of peas I doubt many would set off down on to Beech Road or into new Chorlton.

And in the days before fridges when everyone shopped daily and not all wanted the stuff delivered it made sense to walk a few doors to the local.

Now in time there will be someone who can name the shop back in 1959 and with a bit of a push take it back into the war years.

What surprised me was just how far back we could go.  In 1911 Mr George England sold sweets from the shop, five years earlier it had been Renauld and Co Photographers and from at least 1901 Miles Ashworth also dispensed confectionery at number 38 and given that one of his daughters described herself as a “Confection baker” it is reasonable to suppose that they made as well as sold sweets.

And once you on a roll the years just fall away and so it was possible to trace the premises back to 1870 when it was owned by Thomas Wall who was a chemist and druggist and maintained the business there for 21 years before an Edwin Foden took over.

2015

Mr Foden did well enough for himself to eventually leave number 38 which he rented from the trustees of Thomas Wall and set up in business on Barlow Moor Road.

There are gaps in who we know lived there but I am confident that these will be come to light with a bit of help from people who shopped there and that usual bit of research which involves crawling over the street directories.

In the meantime I will leave you with the latest picture of the property which is fully residential.

And already the memories are flooding in with stories of the Cavana's who ran it and of bikes bought and repaired.

Now that's how I like my history.

Pictures; that shop sometime in the 1990s courtesy of Andy Robertson, back when it was a “grocers and provision shop”, 19158, A E Landers, m17885, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and June 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson