West Point on the edge of Chorlton

West point in the 1950s

Well I am back at West Point at the junction of Manchester and Upper Chorlton Roads where they meet Seymour Grove.

Once and it was a long time ago this was commonly known as the Flash and I have to say there wasn’t much there.

In fact before the late 1830s had you wandered north out through Martledge* past Red Gate Farm and Dark Lane up to the Flash there was no Upper Chorlton Road and our route would have taken us up  what is now Seymour Grove but was then called Trafford Lane.

The Flash, 1841-53

Back then Trafford Lane was according to the historian Elwood, “nothing more than an old lane or rough cart road, with deep ditches at each side, overshadowed by trees, and used chiefly by the farmers and foot-passengers of the village.”**

But sometime and it may have been around the time that Samuel Brooks began developing Jackson’s Moss turning it in that desirable southern suburb of Whalley Range, the Flash became West Point.

It might have been helped by the road he cut from Whalley Range into Chorlton at the Flash.  This was Upper Chorlton Road and while it was a toll road may have been a more attractive route into the city than Trafford Lane.

And as such by the late 1850s and early 1860s began to attract those wanting a pleasant place to live.

West Point 1888-93

One of these was Samuel Gratrix who was living on the corner of Upper Chorlton Road where it ran into Manchester Road.

 He was there by 1861.  Opposite was the home of his son which was known as West Point by 1881 and a  name which was adopted as the address for some of the other fine properties nearby.

This raises that tantalizing question of whether the house gave its name to the area or whether West Point had come into common use to describe the point where the three roads converged.

There are plenty of such examples here in Chorlton.  So Chorlton Cross may be the official designation for the junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads but people call it the Four Banks, and half a century earlier it was Kemps’ Corner after Harry Chemist’s chemist which stood where the HSBC is today.

Likewise Lane End was historically the name for the junction of Barlow Moor Road, Sandy Lane and High Lane.  And it too had once been known as Brundretts Corner after the grocery shop that dominated the spot back in the mid 19th century.

West Point, in the 1950s

At least two modern historians have written that The Flash became known as West Point at the same time that Samuel Brooks bought Jackson Moss and began developing it as Whalley Range which was 1836.***

Now I can’t verify that, but the name West Point is there in the 1881 census and on the OS map of South Lancashire for 1888-93 and our historian Elwood writing in 1886 more than once makes the point that what once had been known as the Flash was now West Point.

And just twenty years later as the first trams rumbled south from the city their destination boards announced West Point as the end of the route.

West Point circa 1903

By 1908 that famialr row of shops had been built and the small development of houses behind had been laid out which were to become the blue print for Chorltonville.

Commercial photographers never tired of using the junction and snapping the older members of the community sitting on the circualt bench watching as West Point ent about its business.

But like so many popular place names it has fallen a little out of common usage.

That said there are people who still refer to it as West Point and now my new pal David who lives in Firswood has set the ball rolling to get the name re-established with a sign post.  He has already approached a councillor in the Longford ward of Trafford.

Now that I like, and I shall be returning to the story.

*Martledge the northern most community of the township and now the area north of the Four Banks up to the Library which was the site of Red Gates Farm
** Elwood, Thomas, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Chapter 6, South Manchester Gazette, December 12 1885
*** John Lloyd, and Cliff Hayes
***8 Enu 16a page 30, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire 1881

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and details from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, and South Lancashire, 1888-93 courtesy of Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/