This is Park End House, which stands at the end of Didsbury Park.
I don’t have a date for it as yet, but it was there by 1893, when it was just one of the fourteen properties spread out along the road, and was grand enough to have its name recorded on the OS map, along with just three others.*
Later in the day I will go looking for when it was built, which is not a difficult task…. just time consuming, because it involves using the name of a resident and trawling back through the Rate Books, and Directories.
For anyone wanting to trace the history of a building, the Rate Books are an invaluable source of information, offering up an annual record of who owned the property, the names of the residents and the estimated rent the house commanded, as well as its rateable value.
They sit beside the directories which are lists of trades, house holders and streets and like the Rate Books were compiled annually, allowing you to track an individual across the city.
All of which means that I know that in 1911 Park End House was occupied by the Reverend Charles Bedal and his family, and that he was a “tutor in Old Testament languages, literature and philosophy at the Wesleyan college on Wilmlow Road”.**
I rather envy his walk to work which would have taken him along what was a country lane but is now Sandhurst Road, past a large field and the tall and rather long wall of Broom House and out on to Wilmlsow Road and the main entrance of the Wesleyan college.
Not that he had long to enjoy that walk, because by 1919 he was serving as “Chaplain to the Forces at the 1st Eastern Military Hospital in Cambridge. Just when he took up that role is as yet unclear, but the records show that he died on March 8th of that year in Cambridge and is buried in the Cambridge Cemetery, Histon Road.
Given that he was just 39 I suspect he was a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic. Hi will shows that he left £1590 to his wife Dorothy who died in 1954.
All of which is a tad grim, so I shall end by returning to the year 1911 when the family were living at Park End House.
The census return for that year shows that the Bedale’s had one daughter, had been married for three years, and employed two servants. These were Mary Davis aged 21 who was the cook, and Eliza Jane Hodson who was 18 and was the housemaid.
Eliza Jane would have had her work cut out given that all the domestic chores of this 12 roomed property fell to her, from laying the fires, to cleaning, making the beds, waiting on, and answering the door. Such servants were often called “Maids of all the work”, performing as they did pretty much all the work.
Leaving Mrs. Dorothy to plan the meals, entertain the wives of other College lecturers and participate in the cultural and social world of Didsbury.
She may even have dined out on stories of their time in the Lake District, where their daughter was born, or Weston-super-Mare where the baby was baptized.
At which point I fear I am beginning to fall into the trap of speculation, so I shall leave it there.
Location; Didsbury
Pictures; Park End House, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento, and extract from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1893, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*Pine House was opposite, Dornden, was next door, and Park House was at the other end of Didsbury Park where it joined Wilmlsow Road
**Ecclesiastical Directory, 1911
Later in the day I will go looking for when it was built, which is not a difficult task…. just time consuming, because it involves using the name of a resident and trawling back through the Rate Books, and Directories.
For anyone wanting to trace the history of a building, the Rate Books are an invaluable source of information, offering up an annual record of who owned the property, the names of the residents and the estimated rent the house commanded, as well as its rateable value.
They sit beside the directories which are lists of trades, house holders and streets and like the Rate Books were compiled annually, allowing you to track an individual across the city.
All of which means that I know that in 1911 Park End House was occupied by the Reverend Charles Bedal and his family, and that he was a “tutor in Old Testament languages, literature and philosophy at the Wesleyan college on Wilmlow Road”.**
I rather envy his walk to work which would have taken him along what was a country lane but is now Sandhurst Road, past a large field and the tall and rather long wall of Broom House and out on to Wilmlsow Road and the main entrance of the Wesleyan college.
Not that he had long to enjoy that walk, because by 1919 he was serving as “Chaplain to the Forces at the 1st Eastern Military Hospital in Cambridge. Just when he took up that role is as yet unclear, but the records show that he died on March 8th of that year in Cambridge and is buried in the Cambridge Cemetery, Histon Road.
Given that he was just 39 I suspect he was a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic. Hi will shows that he left £1590 to his wife Dorothy who died in 1954.
The census return for that year shows that the Bedale’s had one daughter, had been married for three years, and employed two servants. These were Mary Davis aged 21 who was the cook, and Eliza Jane Hodson who was 18 and was the housemaid.
Eliza Jane would have had her work cut out given that all the domestic chores of this 12 roomed property fell to her, from laying the fires, to cleaning, making the beds, waiting on, and answering the door. Such servants were often called “Maids of all the work”, performing as they did pretty much all the work.
Leaving Mrs. Dorothy to plan the meals, entertain the wives of other College lecturers and participate in the cultural and social world of Didsbury.
She may even have dined out on stories of their time in the Lake District, where their daughter was born, or Weston-super-Mare where the baby was baptized.
At which point I fear I am beginning to fall into the trap of speculation, so I shall leave it there.
Location; Didsbury
Pictures; Park End House, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento, and extract from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1893, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*Pine House was opposite, Dornden, was next door, and Park House was at the other end of Didsbury Park where it joined Wilmlsow Road
**Ecclesiastical Directory, 1911
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