Old and New Chorlton

Now strictly speaking Old and New Chorlton, or its variant, the Old Village and the New Village came into being sometime around the 1880s to distinguish the historic centre of Chorlton-cum-Hardy situated around the village green and Beech Road, with the housing and retail developments centred around Barlow Moor Road, and the relatively recent Wilbraham Road which was cut in the late 1860s.

The terms were still in use in the 1970s, and some residents like my old friend Marjorie Holmes in the 2000s could still be mischievously scornful of New Chorlton which was “all silk knickers and fancy cakes”, a description which she would change to "no knickers and fancy cakes", when she was being particularly provocative.

But then Marjorie had lived her whole life in Old Chorlton.

So, the image of Old and New Chorlton is a bit misleading, given that it was taken on Manchester Road in the heart of what was New Chorlton.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Manchester Road, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson