That interesting wall on Gould Street ........ Lost and abandoned walls no 2

Now it all started when Ted responded to a story with the question “do you do requests Mr Simpson? 

Here's an interesting wall on Gould Street, by Angel Meadows,” and included a picture.

And the rest was as they say a matter of detective work on a wet and grey Saturday afternoon.

But before I got there Nick had come up with a map and a picture of a building which seemed to be the candidate.

By 1972 it was home to a company called Wither’s and stood on Irk Street awaiting demolition. It had similar windows on the ground floor to Ted’s wall and because Irk Street ran parallel to Gould Street it seems the candidate.

According to Nick’s map the site was a Sunday School and the directories for 1903 through to 1911 list it as the Gould Street Sunday School.

All of which fits but just throws up a little bit of a puzzle, because Ted’s wall had not been on Gould Street but on Back Irk Street which was renamed sometime after 1894 becoming just a continuation of Gould Street.

Back Irk Street appears on the census returns for 1881 and maybe there later, but is not listed by 1911 which may be explained by a name change or equally by the simple fact that it was too small and too mean to warrant an inclusion.

I suspect there will be more to come on this one.

Location; Manchester

Initial research; Nick Rushton

Pictures; Ted’s wall courtesy of Ted and that building on Irk Street, 1972, m20523, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass