It would of course be stating the obvious to say that Oldham Road has changed over the last 80 years.
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| Oldham Road, 2021 |
For those who walked the stretch in the 1950s from Great Ancoats Street up to what is now called Ancoats Green, the scene would be pretty much the same as it had been at the turn of the last century.
The northern side was dominated by railway lines and the good station, while opposite was still a mix of terraced houses and small industrial units, only the open space of Ancoats Green was still recorded as a Recreational Ground.
All of which was an off shoot for trawling back into the history of the building which Andy photographed recently and which goes under the name of LBNS Nail Supply, but was once the Wheatsheaf.
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| The Wheatsheaf, 1986 |
The pub closed sometime between 2011 and 2014, and there will be someone out there who can offer up an exact date, and maybe some memories.
For now I can track it back to 1827 when it was run by a John Stafford. He is recorded as occupying the house the year before but according to the rate books in 1826 it was still a residential property.
Fast forward to April 1911 and the Wheatsheaf was run by a Lucinda Lynch who at 33 was already a widow, and shared the pub with her brother and sister.
Mrs. Lynch appears a fascinating subject for more research, especially given that a few months later a Lucinda Lynch sailed for New York, another namesake was buried in Dublin in 1933, and yet a fourth was running a boarding house with her husband in 1901.
This last Mrs. Lynch married Peter Lynch in 1893, when he was 63 and she was 34, but like so much research the devil is in the detail, and the publican of the Wheatsheaf would have been just 15 when Mr. Lynch walked his Mrs. Lynch up the aisle, and their maiden names was not the same.
So as l have wandered off on a fools errand I will close with that startling discovery that just behind the pub was an arm of the Rochdale Canal, which terminated Portugal Street.
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| The area behind Oldham Road, 1851 |
In 1851 it served the glass bottle manufactory of J Woolfall and the Cross and Openshaw Cotton Mill, the Falcon Mill and McGregor’s Iron Works.
A full century later and part of the land on eastern side of canal arm had become our Recreation Ground while the rest of the land on both sides was given over to small factories and the Corporation Yard.
Leaving me just to explore the strange demise of Prussia Street which was located just to the east of the Recreation Ground, was renamed Kemp Street and is now Wadeford Close.
It was Prussia Street way back into the early 19th century, but along with German Street nearby it fell victim I suspect to the Great War.
Today as Wadeford Close it has an odd existence, running from Oldham Road to Portugal Street, before becoming a footpath only to become Wadeford Close again where it continues till it joins Jersey Street.
All of which reinforces just how much this patch has changed, in less than eighty years.
Location; New Cross
Pictures; LBNS Nail Supply, Oldham Road, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, The Wheatsheaf, 1986, m50788, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the area in 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
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