Now there is a very big difference between an adventure and an excursion.
An adventure is something which is pretty much unplanned, where almost anything can happen and usually does.
An excursion as my mum would say has to have a starting time, and end time; there must be a variety of sandwiches which have to include egg, ham and cheese to cater for everyone’s preferences and enough lemonade to plug the energy gaps.
Of course in an emergency Tizer will do but never Lucosade, that is what you have when you are ill and any way costs a shed load more money.
All of which meant that Peter and I were embarked on an excursion last Wednesday when we went in search of some Manchester Pubs.
For reasons unclear to me we didn’t have the sandwiches or the lemonade, but Peter had his camera and a tripod, his book of paintings of every one of the 79 pubs we plan to include in the book and I had my notepad.*
Not that I intend talking about the pubs, for that dear reader you will have to wait for the book due out around Christmas.
Instead it is the buildings we countered on our journey and the ones we didn’t.
Peter was keen to include this one of the Lower Campfield Market partly because it is now the bit of the Museum where all the aeroplanes are displayed, and because I told him that back in 1851 this had been a spot of open land beyond which was the church of St Matthews which occupied the spot between Liverpool Road and Tonman Street.
The church has gone now but on our walk up Liverpool Road I doubt we would have lingered long admiring the scene given that one report in 1853 drew attention to the unsanitary nature of Tonman Street.
In the absence of proper sanitation some at least of the residents had taken to dumping their excrement by the northern wall of the church on the Tonman side. So extensive was the problem that the church authorities had been forced to erect planks above the wall fastened to the rails to prevent slippage.
And that I suppose was the moment that the excursion became an adventure and we went off to explore Tonman Street.
But the details of that adventure and more importantly what you might have also encountered back in 1849 I will leave to an earlier story.**
Painting, The Science & Industry Museum Manchester. Painting © 2016, Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Picture; detail of Campfield, in 1849, from the Manchester & Salford OS 1842049, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*A new book on Manchester Pubs, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs
**Walks I wish I could have taken, ...... up Liverpool Road towards Deansgate in the spring of 1849, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/walks-i-wish-i-could-have-taken-up.html
An adventure is something which is pretty much unplanned, where almost anything can happen and usually does.
 |
| Lower Campfield Market, 2016 |
Of course in an emergency Tizer will do but never Lucosade, that is what you have when you are ill and any way costs a shed load more money.
All of which meant that Peter and I were embarked on an excursion last Wednesday when we went in search of some Manchester Pubs.
For reasons unclear to me we didn’t have the sandwiches or the lemonade, but Peter had his camera and a tripod, his book of paintings of every one of the 79 pubs we plan to include in the book and I had my notepad.*
 |
| The Campfield, 1849 |
Instead it is the buildings we countered on our journey and the ones we didn’t.
Peter was keen to include this one of the Lower Campfield Market partly because it is now the bit of the Museum where all the aeroplanes are displayed, and because I told him that back in 1851 this had been a spot of open land beyond which was the church of St Matthews which occupied the spot between Liverpool Road and Tonman Street.
The church has gone now but on our walk up Liverpool Road I doubt we would have lingered long admiring the scene given that one report in 1853 drew attention to the unsanitary nature of Tonman Street.
In the absence of proper sanitation some at least of the residents had taken to dumping their excrement by the northern wall of the church on the Tonman side. So extensive was the problem that the church authorities had been forced to erect planks above the wall fastened to the rails to prevent slippage.
But the details of that adventure and more importantly what you might have also encountered back in 1849 I will leave to an earlier story.**
Painting, The Science & Industry Museum Manchester. Painting © 2016, Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Picture; detail of Campfield, in 1849, from the Manchester & Salford OS 1842049, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*A new book on Manchester Pubs, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs
**Walks I wish I could have taken, ...... up Liverpool Road towards Deansgate in the spring of 1849, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/walks-i-wish-i-could-have-taken-up.html
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