Now I wonder how many people who live in the high rise blocks of flats on Scotland have much knowledge of its past.
It is one of those odd streets in Manchester which run down from Red Bank following the bend in the river Irk.
I first came across it in the late 1970s when the old slums that had once dominated Red Bank had vanished leaving just a vast expanse of empty space waiting for something to happen.
Once the area had been a dense warren of streets home to part of the Jewish Community who had settled here and across in Strangeways.
To the west just over Ducie Street was the Workhouse and to the south the river and the railway lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
In the 1890s looking out from the row of back to back houses that ran along Scotland its residents were just a short walk from a tannery, the Red Bank Spring and Axel Works and a shed load of small workshops.
Go back just fifty years and you could have added a piggery, lime pits, timber yard and a rope works to the industrial scene.
In time I shall go looking for the inhabitants of Scotland, trawling the census returns for the details of their lives, although I doubt that any will appear in the directories. In 1911 Salter’s Directory never bothered to include it in the list of streets which says a lot of the level of poverty of the area.
All of which will be in direct contrast today.
Pictures; Scotland, 2016 from the collection of Antony Mills, and Scotland, 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
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| Scotland, 2016 |
I first came across it in the late 1970s when the old slums that had once dominated Red Bank had vanished leaving just a vast expanse of empty space waiting for something to happen.
Once the area had been a dense warren of streets home to part of the Jewish Community who had settled here and across in Strangeways.
To the west just over Ducie Street was the Workhouse and to the south the river and the railway lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
 |
| Scotland, 1851 |
Go back just fifty years and you could have added a piggery, lime pits, timber yard and a rope works to the industrial scene.
In time I shall go looking for the inhabitants of Scotland, trawling the census returns for the details of their lives, although I doubt that any will appear in the directories. In 1911 Salter’s Directory never bothered to include it in the list of streets which says a lot of the level of poverty of the area.
All of which will be in direct contrast today.
Pictures; Scotland, 2016 from the collection of Antony Mills, and Scotland, 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
It was named after the Jacobite army led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, who camped here on 29/30 November 1745.
ReplyDeleteNo it was not, sorry! There was no connection between the Jacobite army and this part of Manchester. The nearest the BPC got to this location was where the Print Works is now. He entered Manchester from Salford over a now demolished bridge.
DeleteThat would have more credence if Scotland had not appeared on Casson and Berry's map of 1741, four years before the Prince came to Manchester.
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