Celebrating Chorlton ...... puncturing a few silly myths ........ and enjoying our own Book Festival

Now you do come across a lot of tosh written about Chorlton in the media.

Starting the 2018 Library History Walk

Back in the late 1990s, one national newspaper compared Beech Road with bits of the then trending Islington, which no doubt was a surprise to a Metropolitan audience who couldn’t find their way across the river to south east London, let alone comprehend that the sun rose above anywhere past Watford Gap.

But even here, our own press can at times misunderstand Chorlton, with articles about the bohemian lifestyle, and the collection of independent traders, even leading to an intense debate on social media about the arrival of one national company and the possibility of a multinational business opening up on Beech Road.

All of which is quite unhistorical, because like most places we have always had little independent shops, which have sat beside companies like Wallworths, Liptons, the Maypole and of course the Co-op.

Chorlton, curca 1900

And it is the Co-op that has caught my interest, partly because they are opening a store on Beech Road where I live, and because its opening will mark just a return of the Co-op which traded just opposite in the building on the corner of Beech and Stockton roads from the early 20th century.

But I suppose if the media did want to run a story about the distinctive character of Chorlton, they could reflect on the cultural side of the place.

In the last two decades it has been home to the Big Green Festival, hosts a Beer and Cider Festival, has the Edge Theatre Company, and boasted an 80 meter installation which  was called the History Wall telling the story of Chorlton from the 15th to the 21st centuries.

Along with these, there is the very successful Chorlton Book Festival, now in its 14th year, which starts today.*

There will be the usual favourites, from the Family Fun Day, and Storytime, to a night with our own Copeland Smith and the Manchester Poets, and a series of events featuring authors like Ruth Estevez, Phaedra Patrick, and a spot of drama with the play “Snowed In” written and directed by Nakib Narat.

About to discover our own Ice Rink and brick factory

And it started yesterday with the ever popular annual Library history walk which is the seventh I have done for Chorlton Book Festival.

This year we returned to walk that bit of Chorlton once called Martledge, but which became known as New Chorlton.

I am pleased to say that nearly 40 people walked the walk, which started at the Library and ended at the Edge Theatre on Manchester Road.

In between we discovered that  the first plans for the construction of the  Library went down with the Titanic, heard about  the  vanished Ice Rink and pondered on more than one “dark deed”, including the “Great Chorlton Burial Scandal”.

Of pubs, Martledge and some dark deeds

And that is all I am going to say other than to thank Beverley from the Library Service who commissioned the walk, and did the admin, the staff at the Edge Theatre who put on a fine meal for everyone, and lastly those who joined me including Trevor who left us to drive home to Scotland.

The full list of events of this years Chorlton Book Festival can be found on the link, and there are lots of programmes available on old fashioned paper in the Library.

Making a point, 2018

I have already got my events marked.

Location Chorlton






Pictures; on the walk from the collections of Peter Topping and Andy Robertson and Beverley Williams, 2018 and Chorlton in the early 20th century from the Lloyd Collection

*Chorlton Book Festival, November 19-24th, https://www.chorltonbookfestival.co.uk/