Catching the bus at Brooks's Bar in 1905

I am back at Brooks's Bar in about 1905.  

Now I can’t be exactly sure of the date but this horse drawn bus travelling the route from the Prince of Wales to Chorlton appears in other pictures in the collection where we do have a date.

It is in the livery of Manchester Corporation and soon after this picture was taken Manchester began using motor buses.* Inside sits a solitary passenger.

But what I am more drawn to is the section of Withington Road to the left of the photograph.  Today this section consists of a series of terraced houses set at right angles to the road, but in 1905 they were a stately line of impressive houses.

They were the homes of a tobacconist, greengrocer, photographer and commission agent and in the fullness of time I will track down Mrs Nellie Titley's tobacco shop  the green grocer's of Robert Burns and the address of the photographic business of J Ingham & Sons, all of whom may have taken our bus to work.

What however, really interests me it is  the hand cart up ended by the entrance to one of the houses.  It is not something you would see now and I wonder why it was there.

In 1905,  such hand carts were common.

Workman used them  as did the knife grinder and other tradesmen.  It is perhaps a sobering thought that before such a man could start work he first had to wheel the cart, tools and equipment to where he was working.

Location; Whalley Range, Manchester

*A Short History of Public Transport in Greater Manchester, http://www.gmts.co.uk/explore/history/history.html

Picture; from the Lloyd collection