Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ....no. 96 Soap Street and Mr. Davies

To be accurate Soap Street is less lost but more forgotten.

Soap Street, 1849

Soap Street, 1900

It is one of those very narrow streets that runs off a bigger road, twists and turns before rejoining another bigger road.  

Walk down it today and its like wandering down a canyon, with the  backs of tall of buildings rising to the sky.

Once Soap Street was just a short stretch which started at Thomas Street and joined Back Thomas Street, but sometime in 20th century Back Thomas Street was renamed Soap Street and our twisty turning throughfare ran from Thomas Street down to High Street.

Look in the street directories and it doesn’t fare well.  In some of the early ones it is not mentioned and then when it is, there are few entries along its entire length.

At the turn of the last century the buildings along Soap Street and Back Turner Street were given over to a range of warehouses dominated by shoe and dry salt premises.

And I guess it will be a little later that Clement Davies and Company, Alex McCall Agents, John Yates and Sons along with John Davies, occupied one of the buildings in Soap Street close to Thomas Street.

*Lost Manchester Streets, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Lost%20Manchester%20streets

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Soap Street, 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1849, and Goads Fire Insurance map, 1900, Goads Fire Insurance map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/, and ghost signs 2021 from the collection of Michael Gorman