The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.
Now this is Homer Street today.
I say Homer Street but to be accurate it is where Homer Street was until sometime around 1938.
There were sixteen houses which had been built in 1837 and we are looking east along the line of where they had been.
They went in the Corporation’s slum clearance programme which pretty much wiped away all the housing directly around the church of St Andrew’s between 1934-38
The site was designated an area for light industry, although for a couple of decades Homer Street was left undeveloped.
By the 1960s it had been a sorting office, a bus depot and is now the warehouse of Amato Food Products.
There are no pictures of the houses and apart from the census returns and rate book entries little has survived to tell us much about the properties or the people who lived.
For most of the last two centuries they do not even feature in the street directories and when they do it tends only to be the businesses that are recorded like Mrs Elizabeth Beaver who in 1895 is recorded as “shop keeper” at number 3 Homer Street on the corner with Phobe Street.
But there are some photographs of properties
which will have been very similar to those of Homer Street.
This one is of number 2 Helmet Street in 1897, and we are looking north.
The street beside the lamp post is Newton Square and the house on the corner was the shop of John Summersgil while across Newton Square and hidden from view was the pub/beer house of James Berry.
And had you wanted to visit Homer Street from our house the most direct route would have been to turn right up Helmet Street past the Recreation Ground and then left on to Phobe Street which led to both Homer Street and the school.
Location; Ancoats
Pictures; inside the Amato warehouse, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, back of number 2 Helmet Street 1897, H Entwistle, m11681, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Helmet Street in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
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| Where Homer Street was, 2017 |
I say Homer Street but to be accurate it is where Homer Street was until sometime around 1938.
There were sixteen houses which had been built in 1837 and we are looking east along the line of where they had been.
They went in the Corporation’s slum clearance programme which pretty much wiped away all the housing directly around the church of St Andrew’s between 1934-38
 |
| 2 Helmet Street in red and Phobe and Homer Street, 1894 |
The site was designated an area for light industry, although for a couple of decades Homer Street was left undeveloped.
By the 1960s it had been a sorting office, a bus depot and is now the warehouse of Amato Food Products.
There are no pictures of the houses and apart from the census returns and rate book entries little has survived to tell us much about the properties or the people who lived.
For most of the last two centuries they do not even feature in the street directories and when they do it tends only to be the businesses that are recorded like Mrs Elizabeth Beaver who in 1895 is recorded as “shop keeper” at number 3 Homer Street on the corner with Phobe Street.
 |
| 2 Helmet Street looking towards Newton Square, 1897 |
which will have been very similar to those of Homer Street.
This one is of number 2 Helmet Street in 1897, and we are looking north.
The street beside the lamp post is Newton Square and the house on the corner was the shop of John Summersgil while across Newton Square and hidden from view was the pub/beer house of James Berry.
And had you wanted to visit Homer Street from our house the most direct route would have been to turn right up Helmet Street past the Recreation Ground and then left on to Phobe Street which led to both Homer Street and the school.
Location; Ancoats
Pictures; inside the Amato warehouse, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, back of number 2 Helmet Street 1897, H Entwistle, m11681, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Helmet Street in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
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