Snaps of Chorlton nu 16 .............. on Beech Road with Mrs England just 41 years ago

Now I can’t be exactly sure of when Mrs England posed on Beech Road for this photograph but it will be sometime before 1974.

And it is a scene I will have missed by just a few years, because while I remember Threshers,, the old frontage of Ettchel's and Richardson’s it is the absence of Ivy Court opposite the Rec which fastens the date to sometime before 1974.

Look closely and just beyond the car on the right is the outline of the farmhouse which was demolished to make way for Ivy Court.

There will be plenty of people who still remember Mr and Mrs Riley who lived there in the 1960s and there will even be some who remember being sent for milk from the dairy.

My old friend Marjorie had the regular job of going across the road from the family home on Provis and had more than a few stories of the place.

But the farm stretched back into the 18th century and was farmed from the 1760s by the Renshaw family and later the Bailey’s who were still there at the beginning of the last century.

By the time they left for Park Brow Farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane Beech Road was pretty much as it was in this picture and there was a degree of continuity.

There has always been a news agents on the corner of what is now Beech Road and Chequers, and its companion premises has always been a fish and chip shop.

That said the rest of the parade of shops up to Wilton dates from later in the century while the Thresher frontage was changed sometime after Mason and Burrows departed the building.

So there you have it a little of the history of Beech Road at a time before now, and yes I will conclude with that obvious observation that there ain’t many cars to be seen.

And there I will leave it with just a big thank you to Paul England who allowed me to share another of his family photographs.

Picture; Beech Road sometime before 1974, from the collection of Paul England