Friday 19 April 2024

Defending Chorlton and Didsbury from the fury of the Mersey

Now there is a caption competition here but I leave that to the swift of mind who can call up a witty aside on the turn of a sixpence.

All I will say is that we are back in 1966 at that point on the Mersey where the new bridge crosses the river by the pub.

And not for the first time over the last few centuries work is underway on the river banks,

These have been raised and raised to protect us from the river which in the past could flood with little warning and cover the meadows in a lake which stretched for miles.

The last time this happened on our side of the Mersey was in 1912 and there are pictures of the flood water poring over the weir which had been built to protect the Duke’s Canal.

There are plenty of stories of those flash floods which during the 19th century were common enough to enter local folk lore and have been reproduced in the book on Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*

And that is about all I am going to say other than that the story of Jackson’s Boat and its many different names is covered in that book and in the latest on Chorlton’s pubs and bars.**

But I shall just finish with one last comment on the image which and has recently come to light through a new project.

Neil Simpson tells me that "the Town Hall Photographer's Collection Digitisation Project, which is Volunteer led and Volunteer staffed, is in the process of systematically scanning the 200,000+ negatives in the collection dating from 1956 to 2007.

The plan is to gradually make the scanned images available online - initially on Manchester Archives+ Flickr and later on other Archives+ digital platforms.***"

*Manchester City Council Archives+ Town Hall Photographer's Collection Flickr Album...

And that is all I have to say other than a thank you to Neil and the team.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Down by the Mersey, 1966, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html 

**A new book on the pubs and bars of Chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/chorlton-pubs-and-bars-book-has-arrived.html

***Manchester City Council Archives+ Town Hall Photographer's Collection Flickr Album...

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