Autumn on the Rec ……. and a memory of Mr. Higginbotham from 1894

 

Now, sometimes you just go with two pictures, separated by a century and a bit.

 This is Row Acre being ploughed for possibly the last time by Mr. Higginbotham who farmed the strip of this big field running alongside Cross Road, stretching from Beech Road down to what was the bowling green of the Masonic Hall.

 It is a favourite picture of mine, and one I often repost, and yesterday almost as an echo of Mr. Higginbotham’s ploughing, the Corporation was cutting the grass on the Rec, and in the process left a trail of leaves.

I think it may well have been the last time he ploughed his strip, because within a few years  Row Acre had become the Recreational Ground.

 By which time Row Acre had shrunk from a field which ran from Cross Road down to Acres Road to a parcel of land defined by Cross Road in the east and Wilton Road in the west.

And for the eagled eyed, yes the direction that the two pictures was taken is different.  I took mine from Beech Road, with the Irish Centre in the distance, and Mr. Higgibotham was photographed from somewhere on Cross Road looking towards Beech Road.

 Location; Chorlton

 Pictures; Mr. Higginbotham ploughing Row Acre, 1892, courtesy of Mr. Higginbotham, the Lloyd Collection, and the Rec in 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson