The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 12. ......... The Precinct ... 1978

There will be those who mutter over their caffè latte in a certain coffee shop that there is nothing unusual about these pictures of the Precinct.

And of course on one level there isn’t.  The sign is still there, as are the row of shops, starting with the travel agents on our right and ending at the bottom with a supermarket.

But a full forty years separate the three images from today, and in that time Hogg Robinson the dealer in all things travel has moved on, the supermarket was Safeway, which was bought by Morrisons and now trades from the site of the old railway station, and more than a few others have come and gone.

Those with long memories will chime in with stories of the wall paper shop, the dry cleaners and Hagenbach’s “Restaurant and Coffee Lounge” along with the “Cut Price Shop” and the “Toy Shop”.

But some have stayed the course like Tony Adam’s green grocers, where we have been buying our Christmas trees for as long as Tony has sold them.

And here I have to say that years ago I stopped choosing our trees and let Tony do it for us, which has proved the most sensible thing, given that his choices are always infinitely better than mine.

All of which goes to prove that shopping local makes perfect sense.

Of course there are now bold plans for the Precinct, which may go some way to please those who complain about the place.

True, it is now in need of a bit of tender care, and it would be nice to have shop windows that look out on to Barlow Moor Road, but I am not one of its detractors.

I like the way it pulls you in and on a busy day there is a buzz about the place.

I can’t say the plans that went out for consultation do much for me and so while I can accept the need for more housing in Chorlton, which the scheme provides, parts of the buildings look too large and seem to offer Chorlton its own Beetham Tower.

But perhaps I have just become settled in my ways and no doubt would have railed against the original scheme to build a shopping centre in the heart of what was the Victorian and Edwardian part of Chorlton back in the late 1960s.

So best conclude, leaving me only to observe that at home in Varese caffè latte is usually drunk at breakfast, leaving the rest of the day to espresso, but such a comment will be leapt on by those in Chorlton as pretentious and that would never do.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; the Precinct, circa 1978-9 from the collection of Andrew Simpson