There have been many who have written about the history of Chorlton.
Almost all of them draw on twenty-five articles written in the winter and spring of 1885-86 by Thomas Ellwood.
These were published in weekly instalments in the South Manchester Gazette and reappear as articles in the Wesleyan and Parish magazines throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Ellwood in turn drew on an earlier work on the histories of the churches and chapels of south and east Manchester written thirty years earlier as well as contemporary documents.
But the real strength of his account is that much of it is based on the oral testimonies of some of the oldest inhabitants of the township, people who had had been born at the very beginning of Ellwood’s century and who confidently recorded the customs and people of an even earlier time.
Picture; from The Manchester City News, Saturday March 4th 1922
I am so happy to have been a child in Chorlton. To have had my Dad organising hockey matches at the ground on Hardly lane which was shared with the cricket and tennis club. Perhaps some one readings this will remember me bringing out the oranges at half time. Happy days.
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