In at the beginning …… Chorlton’s garden suburb …. and a puzzle

Now the story of  Chorltonville is pretty well known, and in essence is the story of a scheme to offer homes at affordable prices on what was still the edge of the countryside.

The Meade, 2018

The properties “were let at rentals of £24 a year and upwards and each tenant was a shareholder” and building was completed within two years.*

A whole raft of civic dignitaries had been invited to the opening day on October 7th 1911 and one of those who spoke was our own Mrs Jane Redford who was the first woman councillor elected in Chorlton.

She commented that the estate was “far removed from what was described as ‘brick boxes with slate lids,’ and as to the inside she was pleased to know that the rooms were bright, airy, and well ventilated, and provided with electric light (or gas if desired) and with gas for stoves and wash boilers.”**

Such was the praise for the new venture that the MP Mr. H Nuttall mused, “the curved roads and the houses of various designs in black and white make one feel almost that one was living in Elizabethan times”. ***

South Drive, circa 1912

All of which is well known, so today I shall explore the start of the project which comes in the form of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of Chorltonville, Limited, which dates from March 11th, 1909.

It is the standard legal document, laying out the names, addresses and details of the seven original subscribers, and the six directors, along with the objects of the company.

The capital was to be “Twenty-five thousand pounds, divided into three thousand ordinary shares of five pounds each, and two thousand preference shares of five pounds each”.**** 

Memorandum and Articles of Association, 1911

Five months later the capital of the company was "increased to £30,000 by the creation of 400 additional Preference shares of £5 each”.***** 

The directors were William Brewerton, James Herbert Dawson, James Evans, Charles Green, Thomas Hodgson Shillinglaw, and William John Vowels, who along with William Hammersley were also the original subscribers. Two of them were estate agents, one a “Shippers Manager”, another “a Provision Merchant”, and a Grocer and pawnbroker.

The Plan of Chorltonville Estate, date unknown

Added to this document there are a heap of other papers relating to one particular house on South Meade which show that the particular property was bought from Chorltonville Ltd in 1926 and remained in the possession of the owner until 1980 when it was bought by the present occupant.

Added to this there is a fascinating plan of the estate, detailing all the individual houses, the bowling green, tennis courts and children’s corner.

And the plan has one surprise for me, and that is the section of what we now call Brookburn Road which runs past the school and out onto the Meadows is listed as Altamont Road, and was bordered by the farm and eight cottages.

Altamont Road, date unknown

And here it all becomes a bit more complicated, because the directories show Altamont Road as Brook Road, but the number of properties do not match.  

The 1911 directory lists nine properties and the census return even more.****** 

 All of which is compounded by the census return for a decade earlier which does not record a Brook Road, but does include a Dean Lane. 

So, at the last hurdle of what I thought would be a paragraph rounding off the story we are presented with a whole new set of puzzles.

But history is messy, and the fun is trying to find the way through.

So, I shall just conclude by saying there is more on the story of Chorltonville, in the book The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, which is available from  http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or Chorlton Book shop, 506 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW 0161 881 6374

Location; Chorltonville

Pictures; The Mead, 2018, from The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Drive, 1912, from the Lloyd Collection, Memorandum and Articles of Association, 1911, and plan, courtesy of Laura Hopkins

* Mr J.H. Dawson, Chorltonville, Opening of a New Garden Suburb, Manchester Guardian, October 9, 1911

** Mrs J. Redford, ibid, Chorltonville, Opening of a New Garden Suburb

*** Ibid, H. Nuttall, Opening of a New Garden Suburb, Manchester Guardian, October 9, 1911

****Memorandum and Articles of Association of Chorltonville, Limited, March 11, 1911

****ibid Memorandum, July 14th, 1911

*****Census Enu 11 154, Didsbury, South Manchester, 1911