We are on Chester Street in Gorton, not that you will find it today, because it’s name has been changed to Carfax Street and there hangs the tale.
Because Andy, in his new series Lost in Gorton, photographed the Wesleyan Sunday school building, and I went looking for it in the past.
The trick is to look up the street in past street directories, identify the place and go looking for its history.
But that name change led me down fruitless ways, and the search became a hunt for any of the surrounding streets that had retained their name and were there in 1911.
It took a bit of time, but in the end I found Cross Lane, and off it there was Chester Street, which by degree took me to the Sunday school which once was accompanied by its church.
Both were still there in 1950, but the church has gone, and in its place is a rather tired looking industrial unit which belongs to Moon Carpet who appear to have extended into the Sunday school building.
In time I might find out more, about the church and its Sunday school.
There is an inscription above the door of the Sunday School and a date. Sadly the inscription is too weather worn to read but the date has survived and records the building was erected in 1860.
I know that the church was part of Longsight Circuit which included chapels at Grey Mare Lane, Hyde Road, and North Road.
And here I must point out my own deliberate mistake in the title, because what is left is the former Sunday school not the chapel.
And just when you thought you had closed the book, Boomer and John Anthony added this. Boomer tells me that he is "fairly sure the writing above the date says Gorton mission", while John Antony adds "Interesting story, Andrew, but I missed reading Part 1 (missing link?). The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Cross Lane was founded in 1824, according to the Lancashire Parish Clerk, but who do not know the date of closure. Looking at an 1852 OS Map, the land on which the chapel was built was still apparently a field, but this just demonstrates the folly of assuming that founding a chapel and building a chapel are the same event. Extract from and link to their Website below. https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Manchester/Gorton/index.html "
Location; Gorton
Picture; the old Sunday School Building, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and extraxt from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1952
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| The Sunday School, 2020 |
The trick is to look up the street in past street directories, identify the place and go looking for its history.
But that name change led me down fruitless ways, and the search became a hunt for any of the surrounding streets that had retained their name and were there in 1911.
It took a bit of time, but in the end I found Cross Lane, and off it there was Chester Street, which by degree took me to the Sunday school which once was accompanied by its church.
 |
| The Sunday school and church, 1952 |
In time I might find out more, about the church and its Sunday school.
There is an inscription above the door of the Sunday School and a date. Sadly the inscription is too weather worn to read but the date has survived and records the building was erected in 1860.
I know that the church was part of Longsight Circuit which included chapels at Grey Mare Lane, Hyde Road, and North Road.
And here I must point out my own deliberate mistake in the title, because what is left is the former Sunday school not the chapel.
And just when you thought you had closed the book, Boomer and John Anthony added this. Boomer tells me that he is "fairly sure the writing above the date says Gorton mission", while John Antony adds "Interesting story, Andrew, but I missed reading Part 1 (missing link?). The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Cross Lane was founded in 1824, according to the Lancashire Parish Clerk, but who do not know the date of closure. Looking at an 1852 OS Map, the land on which the chapel was built was still apparently a field, but this just demonstrates the folly of assuming that founding a chapel and building a chapel are the same event. Extract from and link to their Website below. https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Manchester/Gorton/index.html "
Location; Gorton
Picture; the old Sunday School Building, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and extraxt from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1952
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