So what was Southern Street in Castlefield once like?

Southern Street in 2003

This was Southern Street, off Liverpool Road during a chunk of the 1980s  and into the next two decades it was one of the stops on an annual walk and talk I did in the Castlefield area.

During the course of those years it underwent profound changes with most of what had been late 18th century houses demolished or converted into flats and offices.

Of course part of me was saddened by the loss of these old properties but the upside is that the street is once again a place where people live and work.

Looking down Southern Street 2003

And that has to be a good thing.  By the 1980s there were few businesses left and within the next twenty years even they had gone.

I remember talking to some of the men who worked in Andrew’s Garage in the centre of Southern Street along with the owners of the printing business at one end of the street and the motor bike shop at the other.

Collectively their memories spanned back into  the 1950s and in the course of the next week or so I want to look at that lost Castlefield.

But for now I shall just reproduce something I wrote back in 2003 and leave you to reflect on just how much this little bit of Castlefield has changed.

“Southern Street in 1851 shows the same pattern of housing occupation as other working class parts of the city.  

In many of the houses there is evidence of overcrowding and cellar occupation.  

So at 3 Southern Street, 15 people are recorded there in 1851, with 5 living in the cellar, 2 in one room, 4 in another and 4 in the garret.   

Numbers 3 & 5 Southern Street, 2003

Number 5 has 11 people.  Across the street number 12 &14 are now a garage.  
In 1851, 7 people are listed as living in number 14.  

It is easy to appreciate the degree of squeeze when you measure the size of these properties.  

Put more simply when you look down Southern Street, remember that the 1851 census recorded 81 people living in this small street, which was a drop from the 200 living there a decade before.

Numbers 3 & 5 Southern Street is worth looking at in detail, as they may not be there for much longer. 

The block has been bought recently and while there is some doubt about the future plans I can’t see them staying in their present state.  

They were surveyed in 1993.  The houses consisted of three floors and a cellar.  The second floor dimensions of number 3 are 22 feet 6 inches back from the front and 16 feet 4 inches from side to side. Number 5 varies slightly at 22 feet 2 inches by 17 feet.  

Numbers 12 & 14 Southern Street, 2003

Evidence for the cellar windows can still be seen but much else has undergone changes.  

Ground and first floor windows are not original and the door to number 5 has been enlarged. 

All the evidence suggests that they were built sometime around 1794.  

Houses on Southern Street, Barton Street and Worsley Street are shown on a map of that year, when Liverpool Road was still called Priestner Street and terminated at Collier Street.  

Street Directories record people living in them from 1795.  This fits in with what we know of the surrounding streets.  

Evidence from the title deeds of the White Lion Inn and the Oxnoble Inn show that that six plots of land were sold in 1782. In 1804 the Oxnoble plot was sold again on condition that it was built upon within two years.”*

Location; Manchester

*Castlefield, Andrew Simpson, 2003

Pictures, Southern Street and Liverpool Road, 2003