It is one of those silly stories which started with a couple of pictures of the Rec in the early morning.
Early morning on the Rec, 2021 |
And progressed through to a newspaper report from September 1897 of an ordinary meeting of the Withington Urban District Council at which Mr. Burgess “intimated that a gentleman in Manchester, whose name he would not at present mention, had offered to give a drinking fountain to be placed in Chorlton-cum-Hardy”.*
I had been looking for information about the early years of the Recreation Ground on Beech Road.**
It had been opened in the May of 1896, and was gift form Lord Egerton of a strip of land which had for centuries been known as Row Acre.***
And here I went very wrong, because so engrossed was I in the research that the fountain and the Rec came together and for a brief while I went searching for just where the drinking fountain might have been located on what is now called Beech Road Park.
Waiting for something to happen, 2021 |
And he would be right, leaving me to reflect on that earlier bit of public open space which is surrounded by two pubs, the old parish burial ground, the village school along with two former farm houses.
Today most of us think of Chorlton green as an open space of grass ringed by trees but this was not how it has always been.
Before the turn of the 19th century it may have been much bigger and indeed for most of that century was not even open to the people of the village, having been enclosed by Samuel Wilton and not returned to public use until the 1890s.
And then for a great stretch of time remained without grass but did have a pretty neat water fountain.
The Green, circa 1900 |
I have always liked the lamp which stands on the green, with its hint of Narnia.
And back in the May of 1986 I can remember walking past it in the early evening and coming across a string quartet playing around its base. Today people would just take it in their stride mutter something about it being typically Chorlton, but back then it struck me as the promise of things to come.
Which later that night with the defeat of the Conservative candidate and the election of the first Labour Councillor it indeed seem to herald something new.
But being a historian I have to own up to the fact that the following year the Conservatives were back but they were on borrowed time, and 1987 marked the final year that a Conservative would be elected from Chorlton to the Town Hall.
The year before may have been the first string quartet on the green but it has not been the last.
The drinking fountain, circa 190o |
Once it would have been the village pump which offered all three and which on hot summer days had the added bonus of a place the kids could play.
Now there is a lot more history to explore in the photograph of the fountain but I rather think I will leave that for another time.
To which Michael Wood has added, "My recollection is that the fountain on the rec was located centrally outside the shelter, as on the attached snip from the georeferenced maps website showing OS 25” 1892-1914 series.
It was the same design as was used in Chorlton Park near the tennis courts, a perfunctory iron structure with domed hoods over the outlets, operated by a button on top - nothing like the elaborate ornamental feature on the Green. Can’t find an image at the moment, but I could draw one!
They must have been a common municipal feature in their time, but by the mid-sixties they were semi-functioning or defunct. "The Rec, 1914
And I hope he does, as it is I never knew about the bandstand.
Pictures; the Rec very early on a Tuesday morning from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the drinking fountain on the green, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection
*District Councils, Manchester Guardian, September 10th, 1897
**Public Recreation Grounds at Withington, Manchester Guardian, May 18th, 1896
***Breaking News ……….. the Rec on Beech Road is officially opened, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/04/breaking-news-rec-on-beech-road-is.html
No comments:
Post a Comment