The Parsonage in Didsbury by Derrick A. Lea

This is another of the drawings  of our local artist Derrick A. Lea for a while.

He lived here in Chorlton from the late 1940s till the 1970s, produced many fine woodcuts and has been pretty much forgotten.  Of the ten pictures in the collection six are of Chorlton and all but two of these have featured in the blog.*

But this one is the Parsonage in Didsbury and given that other people have written about the place with far more knowledge than I here is an extract from the site of The Didsbury Parsonage Trust.

“The Didsbury Parsonage (Old Parsonage) is a Grade II listed building situated opposite St James' Church, adjacent to the original village green of Didsbury, Manchester. The building and gardens were left to the citizens of the City of Manchester by Alderman Fletcher Moss in his will following his death in 1919.

The building is probably the second oldest one in Didsbury after St James' Church. It may have been built, at least in part, around 1650 ‘for the use of the minister’.  

The most famous and influential resident was probably Fletcher Moss

In 1864, Fletcher Moss, then aged 22, moved in with his parents and subsequently bought the house in 1885. He died in 1919 after an active life of public service and was renowned for his in depth writing on local history, flora and fauna and local people.

Alderman Moss bequeathed the house and gardens to the City of Manchester on his death in 1919 because he wanted the house and its contents to remain, as far as possible, intact 'to show what a comfortable house of the olden times was like'. Unfortunately, the house became difficult to maintain and in 1922 many features, including stained glass and fireplaces were removed.

In due course the house became an art gallery, containing much of the Fletcher Moss Collection, which included several Turner paintings (now in the National Collection). The emphasis of the displays was on items made in or associated with Manchester.

As an ‘economic measure’, the City of Manchester closed the gallery in the 1980's.  In the fine gardens can be seen the graves of several of Fletcher Moss’s dogs, under the yew tree in the shrubbery fronting the house.”**

Picture; The Old Parsonage, Didsbury, Derrick A. Lea







* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Derrick%20A%20Lea
** The Didsbury Parsonage Trust, http://didsburyparsonagetrust.org.uk/history/