Suburban Green ...... a bag of nails..... and the shadowy Mr. William Torkington

We are on Beech Road just four days ago, and the new restaurant which is Suburban Green is well on its way to be ready to open.

Since I last walked past it has gained a new sign and a set of plants.

Of course, the continued Covid restrictions have put off the day of opening, but I am convinced that sometime soon in the new year we will be sitting at a table and ordering a meal.

I can say that I have eaten in each of its predecessors right back to when it was Café on The Green, and over the years have written about each one.

Before that I remember it when it was briefly a piano shop and before that a hairdressers.

And so as you do I decided to track the building back into its history.

For a great chunk of the early 20th century, it was an ironmongers and before that a grocers.

There are a few old photographs in the collection dating back to 1935 and sometime around 1900 which show the shop as an iron mongers, and we do have the name of Joe Hallowell who was selling assorted household goods, from nails and waxed string to curtain hooks and candles in 1899.

His predecessor was a William Torkington who is listed as a grocer in 1895 and appears in the Rate Books for the previous year.  He paid an annual rent of £30 to a Mrs. Sarah Dineley, and I rather think this entry offers up a date for when shop was built.

There is some more research to do but at present there appears no record of the building in the rate book before 1894.

And that research may throw some more light on Mr. Torkington who seems a shadowy figure.

There is a reference to him living on Stockton Range in 1901, but he appears to have moved on by the April of that year because he does not appear on the census.

So, much more to do, which I hope will be completed for the time we sit in the restaurant.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Suburban Green, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1976, A. Dawson,  m17414, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and in 1935, from the collection of Marjorie Holmes

*Pass me the chips and Halloumi Saganaki ......... the new place on Beech Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/pass-me-chips-and-halloumi-saganaki-new.html