The Lost Red Cross Hospitals of Whalley Range

Patients and Red Cross VADs in a hospital in France

There were at least five of them ranging from private homes given over to the needs of war to theological colleges with room to spare.

Some across the border in Chorlton and Didsbury have been documented, but in the case of Whalley Range there is just a list in a Red Cross file and the occasional newspaper report.*

The Lancashire Independent College along with the Hartley Primitive Methodist College on Alexandra Road offered their dormitories as hospital wards.

But then there were the private homes which have been less easy to locate and a military HQ.

Burford Road in 1894

Of these there was Sunnyside on Range Road, numbers 1 & 3 Burford Road and Lancaster House.

Sunnyside still exits and is a tall semi detached house on the north side of Range Road.

In 1911 its occupant a Mr Henry Cartledge described it as having nine rooms with a longish garden which backed on to the properties fronting Yardburgh Street.

And that pretty much is all there is.  A newspaper report referred to it as the Britannia Hospital but places it on Withington Road which joins Range Road.

It was a small hospital accommodating just thirty-three beds and in 1917 the Red Cross decided to close it and transfer its patients to the Wesleyan College in Didsbury site which was to increase its capacity to 250 beds.

The houses on Burford Road are equally still shrouded in mystery.  In 1911 number three was home to Mr and Mrs Gamble and their three daughters and a servant.

It too had nine rooms and was one of two semi detached properties on the corner of Burford and Withington Road. Two years earlier, number one known as Burford House was the residence of Edward R Buck, manufacturer and number three, the Falklands   was occupied by A Mrs Hester.

Lancaster House, Whalley Road, 1961

But 1911 number one was vacant and in the way of these things perhaps number three was also empty by the outbreak of the war.

Already the Corporation had had plans to buy the 14 roomed properties known as the Alders just a little further along Burford Road and is it as preparatory school for Whalley Range High School for Girls.

Lancaster House on Whalley Road was already a military establishment being the HQ of C Squadron of the Imperial Yeomanry, continuing to serve the army well into the mid 20th century.

Now the existence of all these Red Cross Voluntary Hospitals across south Manchester has pretty much been forgotten which is a shame really, given the good they did and the work on the people of Whalley range, Chorlton, and Didsbury who staffed them  and raised money for them.

*The McLaren Memorial Baptist Church Edge Lane, Chorlton, The Wesleyan Church, Manchester Road, Chorlton, , The Wesleyan College, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Woodlawn, Mersey Road, Didsbury.

Pictures; Patients & Red Cross VADs in a hospital at Gournay, France, 1916, courtesy of the Red Cross, detail from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Lancaster House, Whalley Road, 1961, by A.E.Brown, m40912, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council