“thrashed many a time by Bower’s servants” childhood memories in Fallowfield

It is easy to forget that south Manchester was not always just a sprawling set of suburbs on the edge of the city centre.

Once upon a time and really not that long ago it was a distinct group of townships, each with its own rural traditions set apart from its big neighbour but with close links none the less.

Our farmers and market gardeners went into the Manchester markets with their agricultural produce and we in turn received the Sunday trade out for a day in the countryside, along with the carriers and itinerant tradesmen.  Then there were the increasing number of wealthy Manchester families moving out to the fields and meadows away from the grime, smoke and noise of the city.

What always surprises me is that these rural communities lasted into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  There are still people here who remember our blacksmith on Beech Road and can tell stories of being sent for milk from the local farms.

So I have decided to spend a little time in Fallowfield in the 1840s getting an idea of how they did things.  Like our own Thomas Ellwood, Fallowfield had  Mrs Williamson who in the 1880s collected the memories of older inhabitants of what the place was like in the early part of that century.*

Here were stories of handloom weavers and of the apple plantation at Lady Barn where children collected crab apples, and one woman confessed to being “thrashed many a time by Bower’s servants” for stealing the fruit.

And if you had washed up in Fallowfied in early August you would have been right in the middle of the wakes.

This was once popular all over England and was linked to the local saint to whom the parish church was dedicated. In Chorlton’s case this was the third Sunday in July when we celebrated St Clements’s Day, but here in Fallowfied it was August 5th in memory of St James.

It was the custom whereby villagers brought fresh rushes to spread on the church floor after the old ones had been swept out gave the day its other name of rush bearing.

The rushes were brought on a rush cart which was a farmer’s flat cart decorated with garlands, branches of oaks, ribbons and flags, drawn by 20 or 30 young men harnessed in pairs and covered in garlands and ribbons.

They were accompanied by men carrying banners, as well as pipers, drummers and bell ringers.

According to Mrs Williamson who wrote about Fallowfield in the early 19th century,

“Ashfield was the limit of Fallowfield, and so the limit of the Rush-bearers’ march; the cart was drawn into the grounds at the further gate, and placed in front of the house; the heroes unharnessed themselves and were regaled with beer distributed by the young ladies and gentlemen.  

Then came the Dance; it was not exactly a Morris Dance, because there were no castanets, in later days not even bells, but all the grotesqueness of dress and antic suggestive of Moorish origin.

After an hour’s hard work, another and more plentiful regaling took place, this time on pies, cakes and every good thing the hospitality of a kind-hearted hostess could suggest; and after three good English cheers for their entertainers, the procession reformed and left the grounds in the order in which it had entered.

As gentlemen’s houses increased in number, the visits of the Rush Cart increased; as time passed, gifts changed from food to money, the money to be spent at the Sherwood of White Lion; but in the early part of the century the party came directly from Ashfield and Mabfield to the village, danced there until even the girls were tired, and then dismissed.”

So a little bit of Fallowfield a long time ago.

Picture; Grundy’s Farm, Ladybarn Lane, 1890, m22340, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass maps from Sketches of Fallowfield

* Williamson Mrs W.C., Sketches of Fallowfield and the surrounding Manors, 1888