What is in a name? Part 1 .... Oswald Lane and Fielden Avenue

Fielden Avenue today

It is often those little roads in the township which intrigue me most.

Take Fielden Avenue and Oswald Lane, which today consist of just one row of terraced houses and a more recent development.

But track them back over time and there are some fascinating little stories here.

Back in the 1840s Oswald Lane was just that, a small lane running from what is now Manchester Road with fields on either side and a row of cottages just where it now joins Oswald Road.

Oswald Field in 1841

It was known as Oswald Field.

The area was on the edge of the Isles, and already was surrounded by clay and marl pits many of which were filled with water.

Fifty or so years later and Fielden Terrace had been built.

These were a row of houses set back on the east side of what is now Fielden Avenue, and sometime between 1894 and 1903 they were joined by another row of smaller properties facing them.

Here lived some of the people who made up the New Chorlton which had grown rapidly from the 1880s.

People who did not make a living from the land as had the residents in Oswald Field, but were plumber’s warehousemen, sign writers and brick makers.

Oswald lane in 1894

And some were directly involved in the development of that New Chorlton.

Men like Thomas Leah who described himself as a brick maker and will have worked at the brick works which had started up at the beginning of the 20th century along Longford Road.

Or Henry Scott, lathe maker [plasterer] who lived with his family at number 2 and had moved up from London just twenty years earlier.

He has a special connection for me because he built our house and his son Joe was the first to live in the place and who went on to build a lot of the houses around Beech Road.*

Oswald Lane in 1973

All of which a little away from Fielden Terrace, which has continued to reflect the changes that have been going on to Chorlton.

During the Manchester Blitz, it received four fire bombs, and a fifth landing just behind on Oswald Road.**

Since then the big houses on the eastern side have gone, and there has been new build.

Now I rather think this is just the start of more stories on this little bit of Chorlton.

Pictures; detail from the 1841 OS Map of Lancashire  and the OS for South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives,

*The Story of a house, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**The Manchester Bomb Maps http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/maps2~1~1~342739~123267:Manchester?sort=Reference_Number%2CPage%2CCurrent_Repository