Yesterday I went looking for that wool shop on Wilbraham Road.
I missed it by just three decades but Elizabeth’s Wool Shop at 510 Wilbraham Road had caught the attention of one of our local photographers who recorded it on a sunny day back in 1959.
And he wasn’t alone because from the middle of the last century a number of photographers carefully made their way up and down the roads of Chorlton recording in great detail the houses and the shops from Edge
Lane to the railway station and from Southern Cemetery out beyond the library into Whalley Range.
Together they are a wonderful collection which are regularly visited by historians, estate agents and of course anyone with an interest in our past.
Added to these are the causal “snappers” who in the process of capturing their boyfriend or baby son also caught the surrounding buildings.
But what was missing was a project designed to record Chorlton in a series of paintings and this was what Peter Topping set out to do in 2011. As he says “I started the project to paint rows of shops in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
Knowing that they changed usage and ownership so many times it seemed a good idea to record this 'Moment in Time'.
One row that I never got round to was the one across from Morrisons featuring The Bar and Mono.”
And that omission has now been rectified and the painting of the parade of shops and bars will be on display at the Bar from Thursday September 1.
For those familiar with Peter’s other street scenes which include all of Beech Road and the rest of Wilbraham Road there is much to study.
Already some of the business featuring in those earlier paintings have gone and with out his paintings it is already becoming difficult to remember what was there.
Painting; row of shops, The Bridge Garage to Close. Painting © 2016 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
And he wasn’t alone because from the middle of the last century a number of photographers carefully made their way up and down the roads of Chorlton recording in great detail the houses and the shops from Edge
Lane to the railway station and from Southern Cemetery out beyond the library into Whalley Range.
Together they are a wonderful collection which are regularly visited by historians, estate agents and of course anyone with an interest in our past.
Added to these are the causal “snappers” who in the process of capturing their boyfriend or baby son also caught the surrounding buildings.
But what was missing was a project designed to record Chorlton in a series of paintings and this was what Peter Topping set out to do in 2011. As he says “I started the project to paint rows of shops in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
One row that I never got round to was the one across from Morrisons featuring The Bar and Mono.”
And that omission has now been rectified and the painting of the parade of shops and bars will be on display at the Bar from Thursday September 1.
For those familiar with Peter’s other street scenes which include all of Beech Road and the rest of Wilbraham Road there is much to study.
Already some of the business featuring in those earlier paintings have gone and with out his paintings it is already becoming difficult to remember what was there.
Painting; row of shops, The Bridge Garage to Close. Painting © 2016 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
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