Buying your meat from Mr Unsworth of 2 Chorlton Green in 1909 .... Chorlton's corner shop nu 10

The caption on the picture just says “James Unsworth’s butcher shop on the corner of the Green Albermarle Road.  This shop later became and still is a barbers shop. Private photograph, origin unknown.”

Now I remember it as a barber’s shop, regularly visiting it during the 70s and 80s and even taking my eldest.

Bob who had the business when I went there had been born in Chorlton and had plenty of stories about the place.

I can date the picture from sometime after 1903 and before 1911.

This I can be certain of because back in 1903 the terrace of three shops and houses had yet to be built and from at least 1911 this butcher’s shop was run by Mr Mark Glazerbrook who was recorded in the directories from the start of 1911 at no 2 Chorlton Green.

A decade earlier he had been helping his father run the family butcher’s shop in Railway Street in Ardwick, and in 1910 he married Lillian Carr.

So just perhaps this was their first married home.

That said within another ten years he was trading in Reddish all of which points to the high turnover of some of these small family businesses.

Mr Unsworth was at number 2 in 1909 when his neighbours were Ernest Bugler, cycle maker at number 4 and Stanley Moss, grocer at number 6.

Two years later both James and Mr Moss had moved on.

I don’t suppose we should be surprised for back in the early 20th century there were plenty of butchers, grocers and green grocers in close proximity in Chorlton and competition must have been fierce.

Just opposite was Whittaker’s the grocers and up along Beech Road there were more grocery and butchers shops with even more across the green and behind.

And that is about it except to say I got through the story without commenting on the meat on display in the open air, the sand on the shop floor or  Mr Unsworth’s long knife.

On the other hand, here is the shop in 1979, when those of us who wanted a haircut and a good natter would call in at Bob's.

And that really is it.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; of Mr Unsworths' shop circa 1909 from the Lloyd collection and Bobs's in 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson