There comes a point when you know that all the smart online stuff, along with years of experience of jumping from one historic document to another, picking up clues, cross referencing and deploying some imaginative guess work are all used up.
And then the alternative is that slow methodical trawl through a century of paper records, building up a picture and allowing the story to unfold.
This is where I am, with 28 Edge Lane, which I first came across a few years ago and have now been reunited with because it is at risk of being demolished.
That simple possibility has spurred me on to start digging into its past, beginning with a story I posted last year on a series of love stories connected to the house and then looking for the date that it was built.
I now think it was constructed in 1865 and was part of that “urban creep” which stretched back towards the new railway station at Stretford which had been opened in 1849 and the decision by the Egerton’s to cut a new road from Edge Lane through Chorlton and on to Fallowfield.
This “urban creep” predated the big housing boom of the 1880s and more modest in the number of properties that were built.
Added to which these were big houses, set in extensive grounds, often detached and were the homes of wealthy families who described themselves as “merchants” or “living on their own account” and were employers.
So far I can count three families who inhabited our house from 1865, through to 1900. Some were the owners and others rented the property. At the turn of the 20th century number 28 appears to have been vacant but then around 1903 Mr and Mrs Davison were employed as “caretaker” a role they were still performing in 1911.
But in the case of the Davison’s that perhaps doesn’t do them justice.
He was a retired solicitor’s secretary, leaving some to ponder on whether they were there as some sort of retirement package from an employer who either owned the house or had a connection with it.
And there for the moment the trail goes cold and the answer to who occupied the property from them on will be a matter of sifting street directories and electoral registers down at Central Ref.
That said there is one last bit of information which comes from the 1939 Register, which was complied just before war broke out. The information which was gathered was used for wartime identity cards, and for the future NHS.
It is an invaluable record, not least because the 1931 census was destroyed and no census was undertaken in 1941.
The register reveals that by 1939 our house had begun its long period as a place of multi occupation. There were six people living in the house although it is unclear how many flats there were.
Two were young policemen, one was a manager in a cotton firm dealing with exports, and Mr Howard was a carpenter leaving Mrs Howard and a Kathleen Hilton who were down as “Unpaid Domestic Duties”.
And that for now is that, leaving me only to plan my days in the Ref.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; Barway House in North east side, 1958, A E Landers, m17773, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass extract from the OS map of 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ the house in 2018, from the collection of Jonathan Keenan, and picture of the planning notice by Lauren McFadden Fox, 2018
 |
| 2018 |
This is where I am, with 28 Edge Lane, which I first came across a few years ago and have now been reunited with because it is at risk of being demolished.
That simple possibility has spurred me on to start digging into its past, beginning with a story I posted last year on a series of love stories connected to the house and then looking for the date that it was built.
 |
| 1894 |
This “urban creep” predated the big housing boom of the 1880s and more modest in the number of properties that were built.
Added to which these were big houses, set in extensive grounds, often detached and were the homes of wealthy families who described themselves as “merchants” or “living on their own account” and were employers.
So far I can count three families who inhabited our house from 1865, through to 1900. Some were the owners and others rented the property. At the turn of the 20th century number 28 appears to have been vacant but then around 1903 Mr and Mrs Davison were employed as “caretaker” a role they were still performing in 1911.
 |
| 1958 |
He was a retired solicitor’s secretary, leaving some to ponder on whether they were there as some sort of retirement package from an employer who either owned the house or had a connection with it.
And there for the moment the trail goes cold and the answer to who occupied the property from them on will be a matter of sifting street directories and electoral registers down at Central Ref.
That said there is one last bit of information which comes from the 1939 Register, which was complied just before war broke out. The information which was gathered was used for wartime identity cards, and for the future NHS.
 |
| 2018 |
The register reveals that by 1939 our house had begun its long period as a place of multi occupation. There were six people living in the house although it is unclear how many flats there were.
Two were young policemen, one was a manager in a cotton firm dealing with exports, and Mr Howard was a carpenter leaving Mrs Howard and a Kathleen Hilton who were down as “Unpaid Domestic Duties”.
And that for now is that, leaving me only to plan my days in the Ref.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; Barway House in North east side, 1958, A E Landers, m17773, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass extract from the OS map of 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ the house in 2018, from the collection of Jonathan Keenan, and picture of the planning notice by Lauren McFadden Fox, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment