On Beech Road ....... when your memory plays you false

Now I have lived on Beech Road since 1976 and there will be plenty who can remember it from long before then.

Beech Road, 2017

But most of us will find it difficult to remember just what was there forty, thirty or even twenty years ago and even more so when the current plethora of bars, cafes and restaurants change so quickly.

Back around 2008 my colleague Peter Topping began painting the changing landscape of Chorlton, and I spent time with my old friend Marjorie who had been born just off Beech Road in the 1920s and compiled a list of the shops she remembered from the 1930s and 40s.

Beech Road, 1969

And in the course of the books and blog stories I have written about the area I have delved deep into who lived and worked on Beech Road stretching back into the early 19th century.

And now Roger Shelley and Marion Jackson have set me off again.

Roger posted a series of pictures of Beech Road today with the comment “I was trying to remember what the same shops used to sell” and Marion followed it up with . “My children reckoned I couldn't live without my lovely Beech Road shopkeepers. All my shopping done there when we lived in South Drive."

So here is a list of the shop keepers on the even side of Beech Road, from Wilton Road down to the Beech in 1969.

It is taken from the street directory for that year which lists all the householders, and businesses in Manchester and Salford.

This extract was from the directory owned by Andy Robertson.

And with that I shall leave you to wander down the list.

Location; Beech Road

Tomorrow; the other side

Pictures; part of Beech Road, 2017 courtesy of Roger Shelley and extract from Slater’s Directory of Manchester and Salford, 1969 courtesy of Andy Robertson