Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 45 ......... Southern Street ....... all gone

Looking down Southern Street, 2003

This is Southern Street as it looked at the beginning of this century.

Back then some of the old late 18th century buildings were still standing and while one had become a garage
and another a printing works they were all still recognisable as houses with stories.

I remember talking to some of the men who worked in Andrew’s Garage in the centre of Southern Street along with the owners of the printing business at one end of the street and the motor bike shop at the other.

Nu 12 & 14 Southern Street, 2003

Collectively their memories spanned back into the 1950s and they formed an important part of a study I did at the time on how the area was changing.
And now that Southern Street has been transformed here is part of that piece.

“Southern Street in 1851 shows the same pattern of housing occupation as other working class parts of the city.

In many of the houses there is evidence of overcrowding and cellar occupation.

So at 3 Southern Street, 15 people are recorded there in 1851, with 5 living in the cellar, 2 in one room, 4 in another and 4 in the garret.  

Number 5 has 11 people.  Across the street number 12 &14 are now a garage.

In 1851, 7 people are listed as living in number 14.

Nu 3 & 5 Southern Street, 2003

It is easy to appreciate the degree of squeeze when you measure the size of these properties.

Put more simply when you look down Southern Street, remember that the 1851 census recorded 81 people living in this small street, which was a drop from the 200 living there a decade before.

Numbers 3 & 5 Southern Street is worth looking at in detail, as they may not be there for much longer.

The block has been bought recently and while there is some doubt about the future plans I can’t see them staying in their present state.

They were surveyed in 1993.  The houses consisted of three floors and a cellar.  

The second floor dimensions of number 3 are 22 feet 6 inches back from the front and 16 feet 4 inches from side to side. 

Number 5 varies slightly at 22 feet 2 inches by 17 feet.

Evidence for the cellar windows can still be seen but much else has undergone changes.

Looking up towards Liverpool Road, 2003

Ground and first floor windows are not original and the door to number 5 has been enlarged.

All the evidence suggests that they were built sometime around 1794.

Houses on Southern Street, Barton Street and Worsley Street are shown on a map of that year, when Liverpool Road was still called Priestner Street and terminated at Collier Street.

Street Directories record people living in them from 1795.  This fits in with what we know of the surrounding streets.

Tthe title deeds of the White Lion Inn and the Oxnoble Inn show that that six plots of land were sold in 1782 and  in 1804 the Oxnoble plot was sold again on condition that it was built upon within two years.”*

Location; Manchester

Pictures, Southern Street and Liverpool Road from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Castlefield, Andrew Simpson, 2003