For nearly half a century the remains of the Laurels have been buried under a car park pretty much forgotten by everyone and I doubt would have ever have seen day light again but for the redevelopment of the site.
The car park was part of the old Didsbury College of Education and the Laurels was demolished around 1967 when the Assembly Hall was built.
Now I can’t be sure exactly when the fine old house went.
One source places its demolition a year later but it will be after the completion of the hall when that car park was laid out.
This was a period of expansion for the college and the Guardian reported on the plans to double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*
And given those grand extension plans I suppose it made sense to knock down the old house and make that car park but it seems more than a shame given its rich and long history some of which has been revealed by the team of archaeologists who uncovered not only the Laurels but a neighbouring house.
From the bits of marble fireplaces, some decorative plaster work and the extensive cellars the Laurels according to the team was “high status.”
It had eleven rooms and was set back from the road in its own grounds and dated from the mid 1840s.
I can’t be exactly sure when it was built but there is a suggestion it was constructed between 1843 and 1845** and it is there on the tithe map for 1845.
That said it may even be older because there are buildings on the same spot on both Hennet’s map of 1830 and Greenwoods’ a full twelve years earlier although their footprints differ a little from that of the building demolished in the 1960s.
Now I can be fairly certain of some of the people who lived there but of these it is Mr Charles J Sloan who has offered up a trail that led to the Watts family who built that vast and impressive warehouse on Portland Street in town.
Mr Sloan was an accountant who rented the house from 1895 till at least 1901 from James Watts, who also owned number 1 Millgate Lane all nine houses in the Grove, as well as Park House and three on Didsbury Park along with five on Wilmlsow Road one of which was the Laurels.
These twenty houses together in 1898 provided a combined rent of £783 a year and the rate books show that Mr Watt’s property portfolio was far more extensive.
The Laurels alone gave him a rent of £90 but that was not the only connection between the house and Mr Watts, for the Watts family had once lived there.
I don’t know when yet but James Watts senior had been born in Didsbury in 1801.
His father was a handloom weaver who had opened a warehouse on Deansgate in 1798, followed that up with a shop and the rest as they say was a mix of hard work and entrepreneurial flair which led in 1858 to the construction of their show warehouse on Portland Street which pretty much cornered the market in both style and size.
It was 300 feet long, 100 high, stood detached and was fronted in polished Yorkshire stone and each of its five floors was decorated in a different style and finished off with huge Gothic wheel windows.
In a city which prided itself on being the first of the new industrial cities their warehouse proclaimed with confidence that the future was Manchester.
All perhaps a long way off from our house in Didsbury but perhaps not so.
It like plenty more on the south side of the city was home to that comfortably off section of society which prospered in the 19th century and who retreated to the peace and relative tranquillity of places like Didsbury.
In time I will find out more about the residents of the Laurels and look to see if they left any records of how they passed their time away from the noise, smoke and grime of Manchester, and on the way something also of their servants who toiled bringing up the coal from the cellars, washed the clothes in the great coppers and drew water from the internal well.
Sadly by the time this is posted the archaeologists will have finished, the excavations will have been back filled and they will be preparing the report on what they have found.
I will look forward to that and perhaps it will inspire Peter to paint a few more pictures of the day we spent in the cellars of the Laurels, which until recently had just been a car park.
Paintings; down at the dig, Pascal and Andrew, Robert at the dig © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
Pictures; Didsbury College car park, 1974, m64187, the Watts warehouse 1892, J Rigby, m56850 the Laurels in 1959, J.F. Harries, m42363,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967
**Million, Ivor R., A History of Didsbury, 1969
 |
| Pascal explains the dig, 2015 |
Now I can’t be sure exactly when the fine old house went.
One source places its demolition a year later but it will be after the completion of the hall when that car park was laid out.
This was a period of expansion for the college and the Guardian reported on the plans to double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*
.jpg) |
| Lookig across to the car park, 1974 |
From the bits of marble fireplaces, some decorative plaster work and the extensive cellars the Laurels according to the team was “high status.”
It had eleven rooms and was set back from the road in its own grounds and dated from the mid 1840s.
I can’t be exactly sure when it was built but there is a suggestion it was constructed between 1843 and 1845** and it is there on the tithe map for 1845.
 |
| The Laurels in 1959 |
Now I can be fairly certain of some of the people who lived there but of these it is Mr Charles J Sloan who has offered up a trail that led to the Watts family who built that vast and impressive warehouse on Portland Street in town.
Mr Sloan was an accountant who rented the house from 1895 till at least 1901 from James Watts, who also owned number 1 Millgate Lane all nine houses in the Grove, as well as Park House and three on Didsbury Park along with five on Wilmlsow Road one of which was the Laurels.
 |
| The Watts Warehouse, 1892 |
The Laurels alone gave him a rent of £90 but that was not the only connection between the house and Mr Watts, for the Watts family had once lived there.
I don’t know when yet but James Watts senior had been born in Didsbury in 1801.
His father was a handloom weaver who had opened a warehouse on Deansgate in 1798, followed that up with a shop and the rest as they say was a mix of hard work and entrepreneurial flair which led in 1858 to the construction of their show warehouse on Portland Street which pretty much cornered the market in both style and size.
It was 300 feet long, 100 high, stood detached and was fronted in polished Yorkshire stone and each of its five floors was decorated in a different style and finished off with huge Gothic wheel windows.
In a city which prided itself on being the first of the new industrial cities their warehouse proclaimed with confidence that the future was Manchester.
All perhaps a long way off from our house in Didsbury but perhaps not so.
It like plenty more on the south side of the city was home to that comfortably off section of society which prospered in the 19th century and who retreated to the peace and relative tranquillity of places like Didsbury.
 |
| Robert our fellow guide at the cellars of the Laurels, 2015 |
Sadly by the time this is posted the archaeologists will have finished, the excavations will have been back filled and they will be preparing the report on what they have found.
I will look forward to that and perhaps it will inspire Peter to paint a few more pictures of the day we spent in the cellars of the Laurels, which until recently had just been a car park.
Paintings; down at the dig, Pascal and Andrew, Robert at the dig © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
Pictures; Didsbury College car park, 1974, m64187, the Watts warehouse 1892, J Rigby, m56850 the Laurels in 1959, J.F. Harries, m42363,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967
**Million, Ivor R., A History of Didsbury, 1969
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