Who stole Chorlton’s racecourse?

Now, this is a serious question, because once, according to our own Chorlton historian we did indeed possess a racecourse.

The old lane up to Hough End Hall, 2014

Writing in the December of 1885, Thomas Ellwood recorded that “Barlow Moor is celebrated in the annals of Manchester as the scene in the seventeenth century of animal races and other games prior to the establishment of the Manchester Races on Kersal Moor.  

All that remains to recall the racecourse is the field bounded by Barlow Moor-lane, and the left of the lane  leading to Hough-end Hall, still known as the ‘scaffold field’ where was formerly a low mound, which  served as a vantage point from which to view the contests”.*

And since then, John Lloyd in his book on the township also chimed in with “Horse racing was followed in the 17th century, traditionally the site being a field known as the ‘Scaffold Field’.  The field can be more accurately defined as being the area north of the path in line with the front entrance to Hough End Hall and occupied by the schools and the bowling greens."**

Riderless Races in Rome, 1817 

But Lloyd was merely repeating Ellwood and points out that “Ellwood seems to be the only source and the one frequently quoted”.

To which Eric of Sandy Lane will mutter that all of this was so far in the past that it “ain’t worth a copy of yesterdays Chorlton and Wilbrahamton News”.

And here I would disagree, if only because it does still come up in conversation.

So this much I know, Kersal Moor “achieved its greatest popularity from 1688 to 1816, the period when horse races were held on it”.  That said a later newspaper article pushed back the date to 1687 when an advertisement appeared in the London Gazette, announcing a plate of £20 to be run at Carsall (Kersal) Moor”.****

Chorlton Park, 2020

All of which does indeed push back the date when the “sport of kings” took place in what is now Chorlton Park.

Nor do I think that those events in the 17th century can  truly be equated with our idea of horse racing, because the popular idea of the sport was still in its infancy.

According to a Mr. W.G.C. Frith who was clerk to the Manchester Racecourse in 1963, the first race meeting held at Kersal Moor back in 1687 was “At a time when racing was just emerging from the stage when one man ran his horse against another’s for a private bet”.****

So, there you have it, perhaps those horsey events described by Ellwood were less a series of grand races watched by the good and the rich, and more a set of individual contests where farmers pitted their horses against each other.

I await Eric’s informed and measured response.

Leaving me just to observe that Axon in his wonderful Annals of Manchester, makes no reference horse racing at either Chorlton or Kersal Moor in the 17th century.*****

Scaffold Field and the Observatory, 1854

Although the 1854 OS map for Lancashire , does show an Observatory in front of Brookfield House just a little to the west of the lane  leading to Hough-end-Hall.

As for Scaffold Field this shows up on the Withington tithe map for 1848 as belonging to the Egerton estate and occupied by William Jackson who may have been connected to Henry Jackson who was the tenant at Hough End Hall in the 1840s.

There are a number of William Jackson’s listed as living in Withington in 1841, but none I think are our tenant of Scaffold Field.

So, that is it other than to say the painting Riderless Racers at Rome, has nothing to do with racing in Chorlton, other than it shows horses in Rome which is a city I like.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; lane  leading to Hough-end-Hall, 2014, overgrown Chorlton Park, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  detail from the 1854, OS map of Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Riderless Racers at Rome, 1817, Walters Art Museum

*Ellwood, Thomas L Horse Racing, Chapter VII Badger and Bear Baiting’s, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, December 19th, 1885, South Manchester Gazette

**Lloyd, John M, The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1972, page 75

***History of Kersal Moor, An Early Manchester racecourse, Manchester Guardian, September 11, 1936

****The end of 276 years of racing history, Manchester Guardian, November 9th, 1963

*****Axon, William E.A., Annals of Manchester, 1885