Sandy Lane and the lost cottages

This is one of those pictures in the collection I keep returning to but which continues to retain its secrets.  

The caption states “old cottages in Sandy Lane after abandonment but before demolition.  The nearer was occupied by Mr Morris the Sweep.  His parrot was hung outside during good weather and he had a cylinder phonograph in the window.”

I am pretty sure that we are on the corner of Fairhaven Avenue and Sandy Lane and that the building behind the lean too is the side of number 2 Fairhaven.  It has the distinctive pattern of brick which you can still see today.

But we don’t have a date for the photograph or for the buildings but I rather think they may date from 1850 if not a little earlier, and the picture from the middle decades of the last century.

A trawl of the street directories and rate books  should pin the time Mr Morris and his neighbour last occupied the properties but that is for the future.

In the meantime there are a few things that we know about them.  They consisted of just two rooms and by the end of the 19th century into the 20th were both occupied by very old widows.

Mary Anne Nield at number 8 was 80 years old in 1911 and living with her unmarried daughter who described herself as a corset maker.

Her neighbour Charles Samuel Walker was 76 and gave his occupation as gardener and seems to have supported his 37 year old daughter.

And while we don’t know when they were demolished it must have been sufficiently late into the last century to make these some of the last one up one down brick dwellings in the township.

Finally I am left intrigued by Charles Morris.  He had been one of our three chimney sweeps in 1911 when he was aged 57.  In that year he was living with his wife Florence at number 12 Sandy Lane, which was a four roomed house. So we are with presented more questions.

Did he move into number 8 sometime later in the century, or has John Lloyd got the caption wrong and number 8 was never occupied by Mr Morris the Sweep, his parrot cylinder phonograph in the window?

All of which is why I keep returning to the photograph with as yet little success.  Ah well I suppose it will all turn on those directories and rate books.  But that is for another time.

And a little after I posted the story Ted Harris and Gary Page came back with information that narrows the time slot of when the picture was taken.
“I was wondering” Ted wrote, “if the road sign might help with dating.  A quick search has found that after 1947 new signs had a '+' rather than a 'x' on them.”

And Gary added, “the bill board in the picture is advertising wrestling at Belle Vue. The first wresting match at Belle Vue was in 1930 at the King’s Hall. The bill boards must have been there for some time as I remember them,  born 1958”

So possibly after 1930 and before 1947.

But having revisited the census records for 1911, I now know who lived in them, and their size.  Starting at the first which was no 4, closest to the hoardings, this consisted of 2 room, no 6, three rooms and no. 8, 2 rooms.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Picture; from the Lloyd collection