Before the Printworks ......... on Withy Grove with Withy Grove Stores

Now if you are old enough to remember when the Printworks produced newspapers then this stretch of Withy Grove will be familiar.

And of course so will Withy Grove Stores which seems always to have been on the corner with Dantzic Street.

That said there was a time when that corner plot was occupied by Joseph Pattreoiovex tobacco manufacture.

But that was way back in 1911 when Pattreoiovex’s was listed at number 39, and Withy Grove Stores traded from the property next door and was big enough to stretch down to number 33.

All of which takes me back to the picture which John Casey took in the mid 1980s and is well worth close study.

Look down Dantzic Street and the brooding back of the modern Printworks is absent and there is a clear view up to Hanover Street.

Today not only is that scene very different but the sign for the With Grove Store is still bright and fresh looking and opposite was T Stensburg & Co at number 1 Shudehill which sold in antiques and proudly boasted it had been established in 1810 and is now a fast food outlet.

Such is the passage of the decades.

And confirming that throwaway aside, Helen Beesley sent over a picture she took very recently.

"It was", she said,"taken in January 2019 from the window of Waterstones cafe", and perfectly bridges those decades.

Leaving me just to add "compare and contrast" and I hoping it will spark other pictures.

We shall see.


Location; Manchester

Pucture; Withy Grove, 1980s from the collection of John Casey, and Helen Beesley, 2019