The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.
Homer Street was located just south of St Andrew’s Church and was bordered by the canal to the north, the river to the south and London Road Railway Station to the west.
A short walk in pretty much any direction would offer a mix of cotton mills, dye works and timber yards all of which provided work for the residents of our street.
I can’t be exactly sure when it was built, but St Andrews which is just one street away was opened in 1831 and by 1837 the properties show up in the rate books owned by a Mr Price.
And just eighteen years earlier on Johnson’s map of 1819 the area up from the river to the canal was still open land although already it was edged with buildings.
Homer Street seems a cut above some of the others.
The houses consisted of four rooms and they commanded a rent of 1 shilling and 9d a week.
This was at a time when the best wages paid in the cotton factories in 1833, for a man in his 30s might earn 22 shillings and 8d.
Sometime between 1934 and 1988 the properties were demolished and the site is given over to a sheet metal works which continued to occupy the site until the 1960s when for a while the land was vacant.
During the 1970s and until quite recently the area was a bus depot which ceased operating at the beginning of this century.
It is now a food warehouse owned by Amato Food Products.*
It would be intriguing to know if anything the Homer Street properties still exist just below the surface.
Not that I would ask Mr Amato to dig a hole in his warehouse floor.
Location; Ancoats
Pictures; a section of Ancoats whre Homer Street was to be built in 18i6, from the Johnson’s map of Manchester, 1819 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and St Andrew’s Square from St Andrews Street, facing west, 1966, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
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| North of the river, 1819 |
A short walk in pretty much any direction would offer a mix of cotton mills, dye works and timber yards all of which provided work for the residents of our street.
I can’t be exactly sure when it was built, but St Andrews which is just one street away was opened in 1831 and by 1837 the properties show up in the rate books owned by a Mr Price.
And just eighteen years earlier on Johnson’s map of 1819 the area up from the river to the canal was still open land although already it was edged with buildings.
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| The area, 1966 |
The houses consisted of four rooms and they commanded a rent of 1 shilling and 9d a week.
This was at a time when the best wages paid in the cotton factories in 1833, for a man in his 30s might earn 22 shillings and 8d.
Sometime between 1934 and 1988 the properties were demolished and the site is given over to a sheet metal works which continued to occupy the site until the 1960s when for a while the land was vacant.
During the 1970s and until quite recently the area was a bus depot which ceased operating at the beginning of this century.
It is now a food warehouse owned by Amato Food Products.*
It would be intriguing to know if anything the Homer Street properties still exist just below the surface.
Not that I would ask Mr Amato to dig a hole in his warehouse floor.
Location; Ancoats
Pictures; a section of Ancoats whre Homer Street was to be built in 18i6, from the Johnson’s map of Manchester, 1819 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and St Andrew’s Square from St Andrews Street, facing west, 1966, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
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