I don’t suppose we will ever fully track the history of this building in Southern Cemetery.
It stands just inside the grounds, off Nell Lane and opposite Arrowfield Road.
I can’t say I have ever noticed it, and after Andy Robertson sent it over I had to ask him exactly where it was.
It has the look of an old farm building. The clue is that doorway on the first floor which might well have been used as an access point to store hay.
But there were no farms on the site and as late as the 1850s the spot is just open land.
It does appear forty years later in what was described as the Nursery at the eastern end of Southern Cemetery, and so in all probability was constructed sometime after land was purchased in 1872.*
That said, the whole area suffered from the fact that “water stood throughout the ground at about three feet below the surface and permeated the substratum of sand down to the clay, about 15 feet deep.
This had to be tapped, and the water drawn off, before the foundations for the buildings could be put in, consequently, the contract for the chapels and lodges was not let until May 1877.”***
A trawl of the rate books might reveal the building and even give a description of its use.
But for now that is it, other than to include a picture from 1925, showing our building and the Destructor behind.
Location; Southern Cemetery
Picture; looking in to Southern Cemetery, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson, Aerial Views, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester Corporation Destruction Works, Nell Lane, 1925, Imperial Aerial Photo Com72045, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
* It is there on the OS map for 1894
** The New Manchester Cemetery, The Manchester Guardian , May 23rd, 1879
I can’t say I have ever noticed it, and after Andy Robertson sent it over I had to ask him exactly where it was.
It has the look of an old farm building. The clue is that doorway on the first floor which might well have been used as an access point to store hay.
But there were no farms on the site and as late as the 1850s the spot is just open land.
That said, the whole area suffered from the fact that “water stood throughout the ground at about three feet below the surface and permeated the substratum of sand down to the clay, about 15 feet deep.
This had to be tapped, and the water drawn off, before the foundations for the buildings could be put in, consequently, the contract for the chapels and lodges was not let until May 1877.”***
But for now that is it, other than to include a picture from 1925, showing our building and the Destructor behind.
Location; Southern Cemetery
Picture; looking in to Southern Cemetery, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson, Aerial Views, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester Corporation Destruction Works, Nell Lane, 1925, Imperial Aerial Photo Com72045, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
* It is there on the OS map for 1894
** The New Manchester Cemetery, The Manchester Guardian , May 23rd, 1879
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