Now it’s the station everyone gets wrong.
And I suppose I know why for today all that remains is a bit of the platform on the Fallowfield Loop Walk
But it was here that Muddy Waters, Cousin Joe Pleasant, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee performed on May 7 1964.
This was the Blues and Gospel train at Chorltonville which of course was really Wilbraham Road station which had once been Alexandra Park.
The station had opened as Alexandra Park on Sepetmber1 1891 and its name was changed to Wilbraham Road eight months later to avoid confusion with a London station with a similiar name.
“The station was situated on the MSLR’ Fallowfield Loop line, a 7 mile double track route that linked the Midland Railway’s Manchester South District Line from a point just to the south of Chorlton-cum-Hardy to the MSL main line between Manchester and Sheffield at Fairfield. The reason for the line was to give the MLSR access to Manchester Central Station.”*
During the Great War it was where aircraft parts were unloaded to be reassembled at Alexandra Park Aerodrome.**
And that marks the station off as both a place in our history and of course the station many get wrong.
Ask most people about Granada’s Blues show on that rainy May evening and they will tell you it was at Chorlton Railway Station which would have been difficult given that trains still ran from Central through Chorlton and on to Stockport and Derbyshire.
Not so Wilbraham Road which closed for passenger traffic in 1958 and there I suspect is why history has forgotten the place.
Memories of boarding trains there will be fast fading and I doubt that there will be anyone today who can remember the aerodrome which closed in 1924.
But as Andy Robertson’s pictures show there is still something left.
Like him we have walked the Fallowfield Loop and gazed down at the old station master’s house and stood beside the platform.
I just wish I had been at the concert.
Still there is always that wonderful site about our disused railway stations* which has the full story of the place along with posts on the aerodrome** and the Fallowfield Loop.***
Pictures; Wilbraham Road Station, 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson
*Disused Railway Stations, http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/wilbraham_road/index.shtml
**Alexandra Park Aerodrome, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alexandra%20Park%20Aerodrome
***The Fallowfield Loop,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Fallowfield%20Loop
But it was here that Muddy Waters, Cousin Joe Pleasant, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee performed on May 7 1964.
This was the Blues and Gospel train at Chorltonville which of course was really Wilbraham Road station which had once been Alexandra Park.
The station had opened as Alexandra Park on Sepetmber1 1891 and its name was changed to Wilbraham Road eight months later to avoid confusion with a London station with a similiar name.
“The station was situated on the MSLR’ Fallowfield Loop line, a 7 mile double track route that linked the Midland Railway’s Manchester South District Line from a point just to the south of Chorlton-cum-Hardy to the MSL main line between Manchester and Sheffield at Fairfield. The reason for the line was to give the MLSR access to Manchester Central Station.”*
During the Great War it was where aircraft parts were unloaded to be reassembled at Alexandra Park Aerodrome.**
And that marks the station off as both a place in our history and of course the station many get wrong.
Not so Wilbraham Road which closed for passenger traffic in 1958 and there I suspect is why history has forgotten the place.
Memories of boarding trains there will be fast fading and I doubt that there will be anyone today who can remember the aerodrome which closed in 1924.
But as Andy Robertson’s pictures show there is still something left.
Like him we have walked the Fallowfield Loop and gazed down at the old station master’s house and stood beside the platform.
I just wish I had been at the concert.
Still there is always that wonderful site about our disused railway stations* which has the full story of the place along with posts on the aerodrome** and the Fallowfield Loop.***
Pictures; Wilbraham Road Station, 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson
*Disused Railway Stations, http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/wilbraham_road/index.shtml
**Alexandra Park Aerodrome, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alexandra%20Park%20Aerodrome
***The Fallowfield Loop,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Fallowfield%20Loop
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