Looking at the Well Hall we have lost, Nell Gwynne's Cottages, 1908

Now I never tire of writing about Well Hall and in particular during the mid 19th century.

This will always be one of those fascinating times for me when many of our small rural communities were about to be transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

In the township of Chorlton where I live the economy had depended on supplying food for the growing giant of Manchester just four miles away but by the end of the 19th century the city had all but claimed the place.

From the 1880s much of the farm land to the north of the village was turned into houses and in 1904 we voted to join the city.

Well Hall held out longer but not by much, and so this photograph of the cottages just north of the Pleasaunce is a reminder of what we have lost.

I have written about them in the past and today want to do no more than feature this image of them.*

It has been taken from Eltham Through Time by Kristina Bedford.**

I have seen other images of the cottages but never one on colour which makes it a fascinating one.
Of course they never were Nell Gywnne's but there will be those who still like to think so.

Picture; Nell Gywnne’s Cottages, Well Hall 1908, from Eltham Through Time

*From New York to Well Hall, the story of the Cooper family in the 1850s http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/from-new-york-to-well-hall-story-of.html

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from her new book Eltham Through Time, Amberley Publishing, 2013,

Ms Bedford also has an interesting web site, Ancestral Deeds, http://www.ancestraldeeds.co.uk/