Now as my friend Andy says we seldom look up at the buildings we pass.
It is of course something we are all guilty of and so assisted with more of his pictures and a few from my collection here over the next few weeks are the tops of buildings we don’t often clock.
We are in the heart of Withington on Wilmlsow Road looking at the Oak Bank parade of shops.
I remember them well and what is now an estate agents was in the early 1970s a newsagents from where I bought a double LP of the Kinks.
It was going cheap which I suspect had something to do with it being mono rather than stereo but I still play it and it contains all of the hits and many that were only B sides.
But enough of such trivia, these are Oak Bank Buildings, and according to that excellent little book A walk through the History of Withington were where The Manchester and County Bank opened a branch in 1877.
The building “which has a date stone of 1876, has ornate, rather Italianate brickwork and stands on the south side of Devenport Avenue and Wilmslow Road on a site that was formerly gardens.”*
And sure enough there on the OS for 1853 are those gardens and the name Oak Bank.
So I shall go off and trawl the census records and rate books and in the fullness of time return with a little more on Oak Bank and what look to be an interesting set of gardens.
But in the meantime I shall just reflect that the modern shop fronts have done nothing for the building or the casual decision of someone to obliterate the features of one of the properties by covering the front in white paint.
And before I am accused of a latter day Luddite I have to say I accept the need for change and the recognise the commercial pressures on businesses to promote themselves in the most effective ways but sadly the modern singe and frontage do nothing for this grand old set of properties.
This I suppose means I shall also go looking for pictures of the shops from the late 19th and early 20th
centuries just to prove a point.
Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the detail of Oak Bank from the 1853 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
* A walk through the History of Withington, Withington Civic Society, 2014, www.withingtoncivicsociety.org.uk
It is of course something we are all guilty of and so assisted with more of his pictures and a few from my collection here over the next few weeks are the tops of buildings we don’t often clock.
 |
| The shops, 2014 |
I remember them well and what is now an estate agents was in the early 1970s a newsagents from where I bought a double LP of the Kinks.
It was going cheap which I suspect had something to do with it being mono rather than stereo but I still play it and it contains all of the hits and many that were only B sides.
But enough of such trivia, these are Oak Bank Buildings, and according to that excellent little book A walk through the History of Withington were where The Manchester and County Bank opened a branch in 1877.
And sure enough there on the OS for 1853 are those gardens and the name Oak Bank.
So I shall go off and trawl the census records and rate books and in the fullness of time return with a little more on Oak Bank and what look to be an interesting set of gardens.
But in the meantime I shall just reflect that the modern shop fronts have done nothing for the building or the casual decision of someone to obliterate the features of one of the properties by covering the front in white paint.
This I suppose means I shall also go looking for pictures of the shops from the late 19th and early 20th
centuries just to prove a point.
Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the detail of Oak Bank from the 1853 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
* A walk through the History of Withington, Withington Civic Society, 2014, www.withingtoncivicsociety.org.uk
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