I doubt I will ever get to the full story of this photograph but as my friend Sally said when she showed the picture to me “you just keep spotting things.”
We are on Barlow Moor Road during what the caption says was a Church Parade.
I don’t have a date but it will sometime after 1911, because that was the date the tram service arrived at Southern Cemetery.
Beyond the trees can just be made out the tall chimneys of the Corporation’s destructor plant, planned by by the old Withington Local Health Board and built by its successor the Withington Urban District Council a little after 1894.
By 1912 it accounted for 12,320 tons of refuse, some which was sold on to farmers, and 365 tons burned in the destructor.
The original plans for the site included placing the destructor’s furnaces ten feet below the surface of the ground and surrounding the area with an eight foot high wall.
The destructor had been opposed by the Chorlton Union who expressed their concerns for the health of the inmates of the nearby Withington Workhouse.
But I doubt that any in the parade had the destructor on their minds on that summer’s day.
Someone far more qualified than me will be able to comment on the parade. The nearest destination was Christ Church in West Didsbury which had been built in 1881.
But this is a big procession and seems to be mainly young children which suggests either a joint Sunday School activity or much bigger event involving a number of churches.
I will go looking in the local papers for a reference to such a procession but in the meantime will focus on those railings opposite and the stone mason’s yard in the foreground.
Now I have always assumed that the stone wall topped by those ornate ironwork were there from the beginning but not so as the picture reveals.
As for the stonemasons, in 1911 there were three, J & H Patteson, Hilton’s Monumental Works, and Albert Fieldsend.
So that is about it.
Location; Barlow Moor Road
Picture; Barlow Moor Road date unknown courtesy of Sally Dervan.
We are on Barlow Moor Road during what the caption says was a Church Parade.
 |
| In procession on Barlow Moor Road |
Beyond the trees can just be made out the tall chimneys of the Corporation’s destructor plant, planned by by the old Withington Local Health Board and built by its successor the Withington Urban District Council a little after 1894.
By 1912 it accounted for 12,320 tons of refuse, some which was sold on to farmers, and 365 tons burned in the destructor.
The original plans for the site included placing the destructor’s furnaces ten feet below the surface of the ground and surrounding the area with an eight foot high wall.
 |
| Those chimney's from the destructor |
But I doubt that any in the parade had the destructor on their minds on that summer’s day.
Someone far more qualified than me will be able to comment on the parade. The nearest destination was Christ Church in West Didsbury which had been built in 1881.
But this is a big procession and seems to be mainly young children which suggests either a joint Sunday School activity or much bigger event involving a number of churches.
 |
| Of gates and processions |
Now I have always assumed that the stone wall topped by those ornate ironwork were there from the beginning but not so as the picture reveals.
As for the stonemasons, in 1911 there were three, J & H Patteson, Hilton’s Monumental Works, and Albert Fieldsend.
So that is about it.
Location; Barlow Moor Road
Picture; Barlow Moor Road date unknown courtesy of Sally Dervan.
As you get to where Barlow Moor Road meets Princess Road the stone wall topped with ornate cast iron changes to exactly the same kind of railings as we see in the picture above which makes me wonder whether the whole cemetery was originally surrounded by railings.
ReplyDeletePossibly a Whit Walk? I believe Anglicans and Catholics walked but one on Whit Monday and another on Whit Friday.
ReplyDeletePossibly a Whit Walk ?
ReplyDelete