Now this is the Wonder Inn Organic Cafe which Peter painted recently and according to its owners has much more to offer the area in the years to come.
I hope so because this side of Shudehill has been a bit neglected and unless you were after books or office equipment it was just somewhere to hurry past on the way down to the Printworks or Exchange Square.
I remember the building as “A and A Clothing Ltd,” and “Chianstore clothing.com.”
That said there will be no one today who will know it as Whitaker Wholesale Stationers who operated from the site in 1911 and certainly no one who bought bread and cakes from the place when it was run by Mr Joel Brooks back in 1851.*
What brought Mr Brooks and his family from Stalybridge is lost in time, but they had only made the move the year before.
And along with wondering what made them move here there is also that other tanatalizing question of what they thought of Manchester and in particular the warren of little side streets around them.
Of these I remain fascinated by Thorniley Brow which is the one directly beside number 29.
It is a narrow street and once ran off to a dead end, but on the way gave access to Wild’s Court, Well Street and Back Garden Lane both of which connected with Garden Lane.
Today it is just a very narrow cut through but back in 1851 there were ten properties running its length which were home to sixty people. They were the usual mix of unskilled and semi skilled workers, who might well, have been a little in awe of Mr Kennedy who was “pipe maker” and “employed three men.”*
He must have been doing quite well because he was one of only three people to get listed in the directory as living the street. The other two were John Worrall at the Nelson Tavern and the shop keeper Patrick Lyngham.
As for the rest including the families who lived in the cellars of two of the properties they never made it in to Mr Slater’s street Directory.
But all sixty were recorded in the census return from which I also know that along the street three houses were uninhabitated in the spring of 1851.
In time I might wander back down Thorniley Brow from number 29 Shudehill armed with a map from 1849 and the census details of those sixty people and try to match each family with a location.
By 1911 the domestic properties had all gone replaced by a series of businesses making musical, instruments jewellery and fancy paper objects and a series of merchants.
All of which would have meant that Mr Brook's cakes, and bread laves would have had fewer customers
All of which just leaves me to ponder on how the map makers missed the spelling mistake of our street.
But that is for another time.
*Enu 1o 46, Market Street, Manchester, 1851
**Enu 1o 10-16, Market Street, Manchester, 1851
Pictures; detail of the area in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
Painting; the Wonder Inn, Salford © 20116 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
 |
| The Wonder Inn, 2016 |
I remember the building as “A and A Clothing Ltd,” and “Chianstore clothing.com.”
That said there will be no one today who will know it as Whitaker Wholesale Stationers who operated from the site in 1911 and certainly no one who bought bread and cakes from the place when it was run by Mr Joel Brooks back in 1851.*
What brought Mr Brooks and his family from Stalybridge is lost in time, but they had only made the move the year before.
And along with wondering what made them move here there is also that other tanatalizing question of what they thought of Manchester and in particular the warren of little side streets around them.
Of these I remain fascinated by Thorniley Brow which is the one directly beside number 29.
It is a narrow street and once ran off to a dead end, but on the way gave access to Wild’s Court, Well Street and Back Garden Lane both of which connected with Garden Lane.
Today it is just a very narrow cut through but back in 1851 there were ten properties running its length which were home to sixty people. They were the usual mix of unskilled and semi skilled workers, who might well, have been a little in awe of Mr Kennedy who was “pipe maker” and “employed three men.”*
He must have been doing quite well because he was one of only three people to get listed in the directory as living the street. The other two were John Worrall at the Nelson Tavern and the shop keeper Patrick Lyngham.
 |
| Thorniley Brow |
But all sixty were recorded in the census return from which I also know that along the street three houses were uninhabitated in the spring of 1851.
In time I might wander back down Thorniley Brow from number 29 Shudehill armed with a map from 1849 and the census details of those sixty people and try to match each family with a location.
By 1911 the domestic properties had all gone replaced by a series of businesses making musical, instruments jewellery and fancy paper objects and a series of merchants.
All of which would have meant that Mr Brook's cakes, and bread laves would have had fewer customers
All of which just leaves me to ponder on how the map makers missed the spelling mistake of our street.
But that is for another time.
*Enu 1o 46, Market Street, Manchester, 1851
**Enu 1o 10-16, Market Street, Manchester, 1851
Pictures; detail of the area in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
Painting; the Wonder Inn, Salford © 20116 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Hey, just found this (google won't let me sign in sorry). In the 1841 census, my direct ancestors John and Octavia Johnson are living on Thorniley Brow with three of their children. It's ref HO 107 / 573 / 8 for the Market Street enumeration district 15. Their eldest child is my direct grandparent, but their daughter Sophia became known as Sophia Hoare, and from humble beginnings now has her own wikipedia page. Not a bad result for this little street! Thanks for the research! Yvie
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