Moor Street in Rusholme some around 1965 ............. now long gone

We are on Moor Street in Rusholme, sometime just before it was cleared away around 1965.

Moor Street circa 1965

Now I can’t be exactly sure of the date, but the picture belongs to Ken Fish whose grandmother lived here from 1911 till 1965.

And given the bricked house in the same terrace I think we must be close to that date.

Moor Street ran from Wilmslow Road to Nelson Street, and you won’t find it today on any modern map.

That said it is possible to locate it fairly accurately because across Wilmslow Road directly opposite was Rusholme Grove which is still there today.  It is a narrow unpromising stretch of road broken twice by short footpaths.

But stand at the point where it joins Wilmlsow Road and look toward the city centre and just across the road is a modern row of shops which makes the site of Moor Street.

Back in 1911 it consisted of 21 properties including greengrocers, a fish and chip shop, a butcher’s and a beer shop.

Ken remembers "the off licence was still there in the sixties, my Gran’s was the last one on the right and the"offy" was next door to my gran’s but was forward of her house with the backyard more or less level with her front door.   

Between them was a footpath that led on to Claremont Road and came out near a paper shop and a police station and some other cottages, they were strange because they were below the level of the pavement and there was a slope to the front doors.

My Gran’s cottage when you went in you stepped directly into the front room and down a step, in between the two rooms were very steep stairs with a door to them.  The back room was the kitchen and the floor was made up of natural flag stones with a grid inset in the middle to the sewers.  

The upstairs I can only remember going up once and the ceiling was very low, the other thing that comes to mind is the heavy drapes over all the doors to keep the draughts out, there was also an outdoor toilet and I think if you wanted hot water you had to boil it."

Now there are plenty of pictures of houses from this period in the digital archive but sadly many will have been lost so Ken’s is a fascinating glimpse of a bit of the city just before it vanished forever.

Picture; from the collection of Ken Fish