Hyde Road, Ardwick, and Railway Street, Altrincham ….. turn up in a small park in Sale … and the mystery is?

Now I know there is a story here, but I am not quite sure what it is.

On a recent walk Andy came across these two pictures in Walkden Gardens, which he sent across, adding “When normal people visit parks and gardens they admire the plants and trees, but not me!”

Instead Andy photographed a collection of edging stones, one of carried the name of John Royle Whittick, stone carver, modeller and sculptor, of 8 Railway Street Altrincham and another of Peter Spence, sculptor, stone and marble mason of 132 Hyde Road, Ardwick.

The actual stones gave only the name and address of the two men and Andy supplied their occupations.

And never wanting to appear lazy I followed suit.  Railway Street is listed in the directories as is Hyde Road which was easier to find.  

The Ardwick stretch of Hyde Road runs out from Ardwick Green and here I found Mr. Spence, first on Darley Street in 1867 where he had a yard, then through to 1891 on Hyde Road.  He was still there at the beginning of that year but by April had moved to 6 Romeo Street which was off Stockport Road.

And given that he had been born in 1830, I am guessing that he had retired by the time he and his wife Hannah moved into Romeo Street.  That said he still listed himself as employed but whereas earlier he owned the yard and described himself as a Master Mason, by 1891 he describes himself as an employee.

Nor is that entirely the end of the story, because having moved into Romeo Street sometime around or just before April 1891, he died in the May and was buried in Philips Park Cemetery .

He lies with eleven others, who seem to be unrelated to him.  For a brief while there did seem something odd about his burial in that one source listed him in Southern Cemetery but a search of the their records proved that to be false and he is indeed buried in east Manchester. 

None of which explains why the stones with the names of Mr. Spence and Whittick came to be in Walkden Gardens.  They look to be the edging stones which would adorn the foot of graves, and I guess were taken up when some of our public cemeteries and church yards were closed or redesigned.

But someone will know and that is the fun of it.

And no sooner had I sent the story over to Andy and he had solved the mystery....... "Have just checked the Walkden gardens website........'a huge pile of stone from a local cemetery had been tipped on the site some time in the past, and some of this has been used to edge paths and build walls around the Dovecote and in the Japanese garden'".

Leaving me just to finish off with a follow up from Barry Botherton from Friends of Walkden Gardens, who confirmed that "These stones are edging stones and kerbs that were removed from Brooklands Cemetery in Sale many years ago. They had been dumped in the Gardens and the Friends Group later reused them to make walls".*

Location; Walkden Gardens

Pictures, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 2020

*Friends of Walkden Gardens, http://walkdengardens.co.uk/