On our village green with the Narnia Lamp post .....

Now, it was our Joshua who first called the lamp post on the village green, the Narnia Lamp post and that is what it has always remained.

2018 from a picture, 1980

We have plenty of pictures of it taken over the years, from high summer, to autumn and a few in the depths of winter when everywhere was covered in a heavy snowfall.

1980

And as everyone knows, in Narnia, before Aslan arrived, it was always winter and never Christmas, a fact that Lucy discovered when she went through the magic wardrobe and stood beside the lamp post in the snow.*

It is often the starting off point for the history walks and will be again on March 25th when we do our first Quirks History Walk.**

And so with that in mind Peter painted the lamp post as it looked one summer’s day back in 1980.

Back then the Horse and Jockey hadn’t acquired the title of the Inn on Green and it would be another twenty-eight years before Peter Dalton bought the pub from the brewery and began its transformation.

During those years our lamp post was a focal point for gatherings on the green from the summer fair to a production of Henry V.  It was also here that by chance one Wednesday evening in 1986 I passed a string quartet, all dressed in formal attire playing a selection from Vivaldi.

There was no audience, but they played on just for the fun of it, and then, and now I thought it seemed so Chorlton.

1933

And for those who want a bit more history I can tell you that the lamp post has moved around a bit.

At one point in the early 20th century it was closer to the lychgate but I guess was moved as traffic got busier.

Later still in 1933 there is a picture of a similar one outside the Horse & Jockey which is different from ours, but why spoil a story?

Painting; The Narnia Lamp post, © 2018 Peter Topping from a photograph by Andrew Simpson, 1980

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S Lewis, 1950

**Walking the Quirks of Chorlton cum-Hardy ....... the first saunter through our past, March 25th at 1 pm meet beside the Narnia Lamp post

What’s stirring down by Southern Cemetery?

Andy’s picture of the crematorium by Southern Cemetery will be familiar to many, especially the Friends of Barlow Moor Road.

But I wonder how many know what is going on behind the builders panels?

I must confess I didn't and never got round to finding out.

Prompted by Andy’s photographs, I went and looked on the City’s planning portal, only to draw a blank.

But as you do I decided instead to ask Cllr. Dave Rawson of Chorlton Park Ward.

And within minutes of the email being sent I got the reply "The Crematorium are building new offices and reception rooms with a new car parking arrangements. We met with them quite a while back to discuss their plans and involved neighbours to try and resolve planning issues. I think it might be complete around October”.

Now that is pretty good service on the part of Cllr. Rawson, answers my question and gives Andy untold photo opportunities as the new buildings rise above those builder’s panels.

Leaving me just to say that I have completely forgotten what was on the site, before building began.

But since posting the story we went past and there on the gate post was the words Car Park.

So that is that then.

Location; Southern Cemetery

Pictures; By Southern Cemetery, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Knott what you expect to see ........

Well, when the picture arrived from Andy, with the one liner “Knott what you expect to see”, it just had to be added to the collection of silly stories.

Of course there is a serious point, which as the weather remains Arctic, I am guessing the two birds had enough of sitting it out on the canal.

And I will leave it up to them wot know, to say why the spelling is correct.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Knott what you expect to see, by Deansgate Railway Station formerly Knott Mill, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

The passing of old Chorlton .........

2015

Now I say old Chorlton but there will be some who mutter that the former Blockbuster’s store was not that old.

And indeed it wasn’t, but it sat in a building which had a diverse retail history and for most of its existence was home to a printing business.

Nor is that all, because it seems to have begun as the “Market Place”, but just what that was, is as yet unknown.

Still in the fullness of time all will be revealed.

2018

So for now the story is really one of those then and now posts, and there is nothing wrong in that.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; on Barlow Moor Road, 2015 & 2018 from the collection of Andy Roberston

The Clayton Hall stories ....... no 4 ...... Commemorating the Suffragettes

Now far be it from me to use that well known phrase ....."Back by popular demand", but it is, so this Saturday and again on March 17th go along and join Clayton Hall in ...... Commemorating the Suffragettes.

And to quote that well known song "there's a cup of tea and a bun if you come".

More info can be obtained by messaging  the Clayton Hall Fb page, or emailing info@claytonhall.org

The new Manchester ....... Owen Street ....... scenes from a development no.7

Andy described this as one of his favourite pictures, and I do have to agree.

I am not sure what I think of the Owen Street development in the distance, which is coming to dominate the sky line.

I have nothing against modern buildings and new developments but for me the line is simply that, when the structures dwarf human beings it may be a build too far.

That said Andy has caught the growing dominance of those rising towers.

Location; Manchester, 2018

Picture; St Peter’s Square, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Quirky facts about Chorlton-cum-Hardy ..... no. 2

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 98......... the night the fox came calling

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The tree without the foxes, 2018

Now strictly speaking it wasn’t one fox it was two, and it was more the early hours of the morning when they parked themselves beside our tree and began that distinctive noise foxes make.

And it was that noise which woke us up, and as you do for a while I tried to ignore it but it didn’t go away and so I went to look.

There were two of them, one making the noise just sitting beside the tree, and the other prowling behind.

Of course by the time I decided to take a picture they had gone, no doubt to disturb someone else.

So instead of a picture of two foxes beside out tree at 2 in the morning you got the tree on its own at 11 am.

It isn’t the first time I have seen a fox on Beech Road, but it is the first time that they took up residence on our front doorstep.

And that made me think about how common they would have been when Joe and Mary Ann moved in to the house when it was built in 1915.  Back then there was still a large amount of farmland to the south of the house all the way down to the river and beyond, and so I suspect that there were foxes.

The old tree, 1974

Go back another half century and they would definitely been a feature of the landscape.

All of which makes for one of those little bits of continuity between us and Joe and Mary Ann.

Of course in the intervening century the urban development will have pushed the foxes out, but as in many towns and cities they are back, finding different things to eat and exchanging fields for pavements and back gardens.

There will be someone I know who will contribute a comment on the rise of the urban fox, but for now I will just close by saying how large they looked.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; from the collections of Lois Elsden & Andrew Simpson, 1974-2018

*The story of a house,   https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

The cranes of Salford ........ number 1 .... Adelphi Street

Now I have called the series “The cranes of Salford” and it will feature, record and celebrate the new developments in Salford.

And yes I know “it all looked better before the old Victorian and Edwardian buildings were swept away” but many were no longer fit for purpose, having lost their original use or just got very old and then neglected.

I never knew that old Salford so I am not perhaps the best person to pass comment.

Added to which I freely admit much that is going up is pretty run of the mill, and could have been designed by Year 4 while some are just ugly and too big.

Moreover some that are rising from the streets have no originality and could be buildings from Spinningfields, Docklands, or that brash new development in Milan.

All that as maybe Salford, is changing and Andy Robertson was on hand to record it and in the case of Adelphi Street has kindly offered up an old picture for everyone to compare and contrast.

I say old but it dates only from November 2014.

And that  just leaves me to finish with his last from the shoot which I think is taken from the same spot as the 2014 picture.

The keen observers will instantly want to comment that in three years the cars have moved from off the site to beside it ........ such is progress.

Location; Salford




Pictures; Adelphi Street, 2014 & 2017, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Who will mourn Sally's place on Turn Moss?

Once pretty much everyone in Chorlton would have known where Sally died.

Sally's Hole, 1945

It was one of those stories to terrify young children and act as a warning never to play by open water.

And the lesson was equally, young women should never put your trust in a young man who offers the sky but delivers nothing, because as the story went young Sally fell in love but was abandoned and in her utter despair drowned in the large pond on Farm Moss, which was a field of five acres beside the Old Road.*

Just how long ago the tragedy happened is unknown but the pond became known as Sally’s Hole and later Sally's Pond and was a popular place for kids to play as late as the 1960s.

The pond in 1845

By then sadly it was also popular as a place to dump old bikes, discarded milk crates and the odd dead cat.

All of which meant that it was eventually filled in, but the hollow can still be seen by anyone who ventures off the lane.

In the 1840s the pond and the field were farmed by William Whitelegg who rented it from the Egerton estate.

Mr Whitelegg was also the landlord of the Bowling Green pub and went onto build those two fine houses on Edge Lane opposite the church.

And now if I have done my geography correctly Sally’s last resting place will be “the Grass Running Rounds” which form part of the master plan for the redevelopment of Turn Moss.

Leaving me just to wonder who will mourn for Sally and the place she died.

Picture; Sally’s Field, J Montgomery, 1958, copied from a 1945 photograph, m80104, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and detail from the Tithe Map for Chorlton, 1847

*Hawthorn Lane

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 97......... the noises we make ... the stories they tell

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

We are early rises.  The first coffee of the day can be at anytime between 5 and 6 am and the first out of the house will be up by the old tram terminus by half past six.

But some in the family depending on work patterns, will sleep on, vaguely hearing the noises being made but letting it sit as a backdrop before falling asleep again.

Now I have experienced both.  Once a long time ago it would be dad stoking the fire, listening to the early news bulletin on the wireless, and me, being just aware of the start of his day but knowing I didn’t have to do anything, and that fairly soon all would be silent again.

Half a century on it is me, raking the ash, running the radio and just “clumping around”.
I suspect that my noises are almost a replication of Dad’s and probably also Joe and Mary Ann’s who
moved into our house in 1915 and were the first residents to call it home.

Their noises would have been very much the background to the early 20th century, with the sound of fires being cleared, coal collected from the cellar and noise of countless horses, from the milkman to traders calling with the items Mary Ann had ordered up the day before.

The Scott’s were very modern and embraced all the new consumer goods.
So by the early 1920s there would have been the sound of the telephone, followed by the wireless and in the mid 1950s the television, all of them marking the major shifts in the lives of people during the last century.

Against this were the loss of all those rural sounds including the cows being walked up the road, the call of the ploughman working the fields and the voices of the itinerant tradesmen who wandered into Chorlton carrying anything from brass buttons, to silk finery and the unglamorous but essential items from cooking pots to bars of soap.

That said, Joe and Mary Ann would have seen cows on Beech Road, called in at the smithy and perhaps bought the their eggs from Higginbotham’s farm on the green, or Mr Riley just yards away at Ivy Farm.

And the final transformation from a rural community to a suburb of Manchester would linger on across the last century while the memories of being sent to buy fresh milk from farms around the green are only now fading from living memory.

We are lucky in being able to track all four owners of our house and while in some cases what we know is sketchy it is enough to be fairly confident what noises would have been made during the last century and a bit.

Noises, which would have included the first time the music of Tamla Motown was played in the house, and the sound of John building his boat.

For me one of the most significant sounds has been that of children at play, because our kids were the first children in the history of the house.

But that as they say is another story.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; from the collections of Lois Elsden & Andrew Simpson, 1974-2018, and Graham Gill

*The story of a house,   https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

Corporation Tramways Water car No 1 on Brook Bridge 1930, now that's a zippy title

You won’t see one of these on the roads of Chorlton, and yes once they would have been a fairly common sight.

It is a water car and this one was Corporation Tramways Water car No.1 on the Brook Bridge on Barlow Moor Road sometime around 1930.

Now they seem to come in all sorts of designs, size and shape, but they all did the same job which was to clean the tracks.

I have a picture of one from South Shields in front of me as I write and water is cascading from the bottom of the car.  I guess ours worked in the same way. 

And I bet there will be someone out there who either corrects me or supplies further information which I am always happy to have.  

I must admit I have wondered on how many there were in the fleet, how regularly they came round and whether we would have seen more of them in the autumn when the leaves were falling or in the hot summer months when the tracks might have needed cooing down, which just goes to show how little I know.

What I also like about the picture is the hint of other things.  So just to the left of the car and behind the fence can just be made out Oak Farm which was there by the beginning of the 19^th century and may be even older.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

The new Chorlton ........Faces from market day ...... Saturday

Saturday was not the most pleasant of days.

True there was a bit of sun and it wasn’t that cold, but the threat of rain or worse hung over the city.

And on a whim after a morning in the Northern Quarter we came home and wandered the local market.

There was the usual range of interesting things to buy, from artisan bread, home cooked pies, to clothes and bespoke, gin, rum and vodka.

And amongst them all was the stall selling tea.*

Tina bought a pot, while I took the pictures.

In the busy afternoon I forgot to ask permission to use the images but I am sure no one will mind.

And after the tea there was the scarf, the lemon drizzle cake and an assortment of crafted pies

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; market day, Chorlton, 2018











*My Tea, www.myteauk.uk

Who doesn’t have their own Beech story?

I suppose if you stick around a place long enough you will get to clock a fair few different decorative styles that have been applied to our pubs.

The Beech has had greyish walls, white ones, and if memory serves me a sort of creamy yellow.

So this is my story of the Beech, which is less a story and just a reminder of what once was.

Location; Chorlton










Picture, the Beech, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On Market Street on a summer day sometime before 1908

Judging by this postcard from 1908 nothing much has changed on Market Street.

Then as now it was a busy and bustling place which was compounded back then by the presence of traffic which pushed the crowds to the sides.

And it is the sheer detail that fascinates me.  Lewis’s still retains its individual shop fronts and each window is cluttered with advertisements and price notices.  It is the old “pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap approach but Lewis’s still had style and so hanging in front of the shop are a series of elegant light globes, which in the late afternoon of a winter’s day must have added to the magic of shopping there.

But this looks to be a warm summers’ morning heading towards lunch time with some of the crowd in shirt sleeves and at least one couple protected by a parasol.

As you would expect there are plenty of horse drawn vehicles and my attention is drawn to the horse drawn carriage at the bottom of the photograph loaded with a large trunk and basket.  Something has caught the driver’s interest but whatever it is has been blotted out by the superimposed coat of arms of the City.

Which is a shame really but whatever it was seems not to have bothered anyone else, they all continue on their way with just a few attracted by the shops.

So just another day on Market Street then.

Picture; from the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop

Turn Moss ...... a plan, a protest and a question

Now I am always a little concerned when I read a developer referring to “community use” in a plan they are proposing.

The Old Road, Hawthorn Lane, 2010

At which point I have to say this is not an attack on developers.

We all live in properties and on estates which were once the dream of a developer, whether it be the piecemeal development around Beech Road, the planned estate which is Chorltonville or any one of those ribbon developments  along Edge Lane, Wilbraham Road and the roads off.

All of which brings me to the issue of the day which are the plans to develop part of Turn Moss into playing fields for the UA92 university and Salford City FC.

I have to admit until recently this passed me by, but it has received increasing press coverage,* is in the Master Plan for Stretford** and has now been the subject of a planning application.***

Added to which there is now a community based action group opposed to  the existing plans which has organised a demonstration this afternoon at Turn Moss Car Park, meeting at 2pm.****

Turn Moss was and still is on the flood plain of the Mersey, although modern flood prevention has mitigated much of the earlier flooding which could create a lake 3 miles across.

For this reason much of the land was farmed as pasture or arable, with sections on the Chorlton side used for meadow farming.

Some of the land has long been given over to football pitches but reading the various accounts of the plans to develop I have a sense that what is proposed will change the area.

The Briscat, 1950

One application talks of a new floodlit artificial football pitch, perimeter trim trail and cycle path, a children's play area, a cafe and refurbished sports changing facilities for community use.

These will be accompanied by  the development of a new football training facility including 3 training pitches, a goalkeeper training pitch, running mounds, and a changing office facility, and gym  together with associated landscaping, lighting, fencing, drainage, overspill car parking area, highways alterations and other works.***

I am not sure how this will impact on Mr and Mrs Trellis and their Sunday walk with Bowser the dog or any of the impact on nearby residents who use it to enjoy the wildlife, and a stroll.

The Master Plan for Stretford mentions it just twice, once on page 27 and again on page 49 with the rather unhelpful “There is an opportunity to provide enhanced outdoor sport facilities at Turn Moss Playing Fields. 

This will include potential training facilities to this site alongside delivery of a range of improvements to facilities that are accessible to the local community”.**

To be fair the report covers a wide range of development plans which look to tackle some of the serious issues related to the area, but its comments on the Moss are vague.

So that leaves me falling back on the planning application pondering that "community use" and a wish to to talk to those who are most concerned.

Sadly I won’t be there this afternoon, ..... a busted knee makes a wander out less than pleasant.

But I will be looking forward to getting the reports, and while I wait the story of the day, the historian in me ponders on the great Mass Trespass event of 1932 when a group of Ramblers asserted their right to walk across Kinder Scout.

This some may mutter is over the top, but you can never be too assertive when it comes to defending what has become a community asset.

Well we shall see.

Location; Turn Moss

Pictures; the old road, Hawthorn Lane, 2011 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the Briscat, Turn Moss, 1950, W Jackson from the Lloyd Collection

* Gary Neville's plans to build football training pitches face red card amid green belt row, Jennifer Williams, February 14, 2018, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/gary-nevilles-plans-build-football-14286686

**The Refreshment of the Stretford Master Plan, Trafford Council,Final Draft, January 2018, http://www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/community/partnerships-and-communities/consultations/stretford-masterplan/docs/Refreshed-Stretford-Masterplan-Final-Draft-January-2018.pdf 

***Alterations to Turn Moss Playing Fields, Trafford Planning Portal, 93628/FUL/18, https://publicaccess.trafford.gov.uk/online-applications/pagedSearchResults.do?action=page&searchCriteria.page=1

****Friends of Turn Moss, facebook.

The Clayton Hall stories ....... no 3 ...... Commemorating the Suffragttes

It's today with another open day on  March 3 and it is free.






More info can be obtained by messaging  the Clayton Hall Fb page, or emailing info@claytonhall.org

On rediscovering Dr Paton with the promise of another story

Now sometimes a story from a long time ago bounces back, unannounced with a fascinating new slant.

And this is exactly what has happened with Looking for Robert and Sarah Paton in Southern Cemetery.*

It had always been an odd story, in that it surfaced as a piece of research after my old friend David Harrop showed me a document relating to the burial of Dr Robert Paton in Southern Cemetery in 1912.

Added to which the gravestone was just around the corner from the Remembrance Lodge where David has a displays some of his extensive collection of Post Office memorabilia along with items from both world wars.

I always intended to take the story further but as you do got side tracked and never went back.

But yesterday Victoria got in touch to say she was also doing research on Dr Paton in connection with a court case at which was going to testify, but died suddenly aged just 46 before he could give testimony.

That prompted me to go looking for the family home which was on Rochdale Road which doubled as his surgery.

And as so often happens with research both Victoria and I have gained from sharing information.

I was able to send over Dr Paton's Order for the Burial of the Dead, which included his photograph, along with a picture of the headstone in Southern Cemertery.

In return Victoria was able to provise the address of the family home and in turn I found its exact location using the street directory and an OS map.

Sadly the house vanished a long time ago, although there is another property bearing the same name.

Hers is a much wider piece of research and in the fullness of time I hope she will share it as a blog story.

Location; Southern Cemetery and Rochdale Road.

Pictures; the headstone of Alexander & Sarah Paton from the collection of Andrew Simpson, extracts from 
“The Order for the Burial of Dead” of Mr Paton,









*Looking for Robert and Sarah Paton in Southern Cemetery, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Paton

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 96......... Jack Harker

The continuing story  of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Jack in 1983

I have every confidence that Joe and Mary Ann would have known Jack Harker, because he was that sort of chap.

He and Ann lived on Wilton Road and later moved into Ivy Court on Beech Road and I first met them when I washed up in Chorlton in 1976.

They were regulars in the Trevor, never missing a night and sat at “their” table which was positioned between the bar and the door to the lavatories.

And when Jack discovered John was building a boat in the back of our house he offered to help, and that is how I came to know him and Ann because as we also drank in the pub every night it followed that we would end up sitting with them.

In the early days Jack would work on the boat during the day while we were all at school and also got in a few groceries, which made life that bit easier.

Jack and friend, 1979

Then in the evenings he would report his progress to John around the table in the pub, while me, Mike and Lois chatted to Ann and got the beer in.

He seemed to know everybody and those he didn’t soon got a nickname which in the fullness of time was taken up by almost everyone in the Trevor, and as names do they clung to their owner.

But despite his popularity and his local knowledge, Jack only really told you what he wanted you to know about his life.

I know that he was baptised in St George’s in Hulme, and that he and Ann had been married before but went their separate ways and after the divorce found new partners only to meet up one night in the Robin Hood in Stretford and rekindled the romance.

It never occurred to me to ask about his early life and only once did I get an answer to what he had done in the war.  The rest of his life was only lightly sketched in, and that was how it was.

Jack and the boat, 1977

Of course we were all still very young, and pretty much obsessed with our own lives which meant that our curiosity lasted about as a long as it took to drink a pint.

I cannot now, even remember when he died which happened one dark night after closing time and the regular visit to “Mr Chan’s” chippy on Beech Road.  Having bought their fish supper, Jack collapsed and died.

We will have gone to the funeral but sadly that too is hard to remember.

I do however remember the impromptus sessions back at their house in Wilton Road after the pub.

A place full of Jack's stories, 1979

There weren’t many of them and I suspect they were confined to Christmas time but Ann always provided a spread and we left in the early hours to wander back up Beech Road, missing the milkman by just an hour.

But leaving aside the meandering accounts of “lost evenings” there is the serious point that Jack along with so many others had a story to tell which has been forgotten.

He lived through two world wars, as well as the depression and lived in Chorlton long before the first bar opened its doors.

All of which makes me think that when we write volume two of the Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he will be in it.

Pictures; Jack Harker, 1983, and in 1978, and the old parish graveyard from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Jack and the boat, 1977, courtesy of Lois Elsden

*The story of a house,   https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

The Partnership ..... “it shall be the duty of the local authority to receive the child into their care”

The continuing story of one children’s charity, from its foundation in 1870 to the present day.

Like many of the those organizations involved in the welfare of young people the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge migrated children to Canada, but it stopped in 1914.

That for anyone involved in the study of British Home Children makes it interesting, but its story after that date and through the last century into the present is equally interesting and reflects the changing policies and attitudes to child care on the part of the State and the children’s charities.

The extension of the Welfare State after the war brought local authorities in to partnership with the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge.

For over half a century the State had been broadening its responsibilities to care for the citizen from “the cradle to the grave”, and in 1948 building on the recommendations of the Curtis Report the Government passed the Children’s Act which set out that local authorities should assume control for children under 17 who had been “abandoned by their parents or guardians, or were lost, or whose parents were incapable of providing proper accommodation, maintenance and upbringing”.

In pursuance of this new responsibility local authorities had to set up a Children’s Committee with a Children’s Officer.

The Curtis Report had been established to look at the provision of children “who are deprived of a normal home life with their own parents or relatives and to consider what measures should be taken to ensure that these children are brought up under conditions best calculated to compensate them for the lack of parental care.”

The report was critical of the poor conditions it encountered in some institutionalised homes along with a general lack of training given to carers.

It recommended that where possible young people should be adopted as a first choice and fostered as an alternative, but if they were placed in a home, these homes should contain a maximum of twelve children and ideally have no more than eight.

It also proposed that everything should be done to maintain contact with relatives, develop friendships outside the home and that siblings be kept together. Finally it recommended that children should be entitled to a religious upbringing which was appropriate to its background.

The Curtis Report had found some child care wanting and looked to serious changes, while the Children’s Act altered the relationship between all those charities working with young people and brought them into a national system of child care overseen by the State.

The upside for our charity was that it now received higher levels of funding which reduced the need to rely on generating its own income.

It also embraced the Curtis Report and from 1957 into the ‘60s embarked on a programme of creating a Family Group of Homes, known as the Belmont Group.

This was in accomplished in part by converting existing properties in the Children’s Village in Cheadle and by the purchase or construction of new homes across south Manchester.

Other properties which the charity had acquired through mergers and which were past their best were also sold off and the money used to fund the Family Group Homes project.

Location; Manchester & Cheadle

Pictures; from annual reports of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’s Refuges, courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

*A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

** Children Act 1948, Part 1 Duty of a local authority to provide for orphans, deserted children etc

Waiting for the story ......

Now I know there is a story behind this picture because I have been promised one.

We are on Oldham Street outside the Manchester Coffee Company last week, and something is stirring inside.

The photograph is another from the camera of Andy Robertson who maintains an excellent vigil on all things happening across the Twin Cities.

And last Saturday he took himself off across the Northern Quarter recording the changes to the area.

As everyone who reads the blog knows, Andy’s pictures are a fine record of what we have lost, what we might soon lose and what we have gained.

In years to come they will stand beside those photographers of the past who we all plunder to get a picture of Manchester and Salford as it was.

So for now, here is the picture and the rest as they say is on the way.

But for those who ask where the history is, number 33 Oldham Street was in 1911 occupied by "Craston & Son Hosiers".

Location; Manchester

Picture; Oldham Street, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 21 ........... the unbroken chain

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now I think it will be rare that most of us can track all of the people who lived in a house from its construction to the present day.

But after a heap of research that is what we can do for our house in Well Hall.

The house has been home to thirteen families since it was built in 1915 and I know the names of all but one family.

What is all the more remarkable is that we lived there the longest, from the April of 1964 till 1994.

In that time the five of us grew up and eventually all but one of us left home.

It saw the death of mother, our sister Stella, and finally Dad.

But it was also a happy place and one that even now we all think of as home.

And that bond has been strengthened by a link to the present owners who have kindly taken pictures of the house today.

I have to say there is something odd about looking down on our back garden and seeing that the old tree at the back is still there.

It reminds me of the continuity that stretches far beyond our time at 294 and has made me look again at the stories of all the people who called the place home.

Searching for those stories will prove difficult.  The last census return that can be accessed is 1911 and while there are the electoral rolls and lists of births deaths and marriages these give little away.

So I know next to nothing about Mr and Mrs Nunn who lived there from 1915 until 1919 and only that the Rendles who followed them are buried in Sussex having died in 1946 and ‘54.

Slightly more promising were John and Leah Jarvis who occupied the house from 1929 through to 1947.

He was a “technical chemist", born in 1877 and she was ten year younger who gave her occupation in 1939 as “Unpaid Domestic Duties".

There was a son who may been living in Deptford a year earlier but by 1939 was back in 294.

It is a meagre set of information I grant you but in time there will be more.

I am guessing that Mr Nunn worked at the Royal Arsenal but there is no clue as to the occupation of Mr Rendle or Mr Jarvis.

They may have also worked there but the employment records seem lost.

Now that would be a useful piece of information as it would throw light on how long residents of the estate were linked to the Royal Arsenal.

But what we have is a start.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; us circa 1970, from the Simpson collection

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

What we inherit and what we pass on ..... those two houses on Upper Chorlton Road

Now I know it is not an original observation that the homes we occupy are places that we hold in trust and that sooner or later we will pass them on to someone else.

the two properties just before the redevelopment

And it really doesn’t matter whether it is a palace or a modest semi in the suburbs.

The question is how will the property fare on our watch?

Will we have left it in a better state and what will be the stories that we contribute to its history?

I can count five houses which I have called home, along with umpteen flats and bed sits.

Of the five two have been truly family homes where I was happy and where I think we made a difference.

And of these the last is the one we still occupy today after nearly forty years, and I suppose our contribution is that we are the first of the four to own it, who have had children running through the place.

The first of the two to be completed

All of which makes me reflect on the twin stories of numbers 198 and 200 Upper Chorlton Road which I have regularly written about.*

They were built in the 1870s when a large chunk of Upper Chorlton Road was still fields, experienced mixed fortunes which by the beginning of this century had left them unloved, neglected and pretty much in danger.

But they have had a new lease of life, being converted by a developer into a series of residences for the 21st century.**

I had the opportunity to wander around them during their conversion, wore the hard hat, watched as bits of unsympathetic and unsafe alterations were swept away and finally returned as the completed flats were finished.

The development has won an award and more than that has saved two grand old properties and made them homes again.

Location Whalley Range

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* At 200 & 198 Upper Chorlton Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/At%20200%2F198%20Upper%20Chorlton%20Road

** Armistead Properties, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/