Today, tiny water courses like the Baguley Brook, are pretty much forgotten, except for kids, and the Water Agency.
To which you might add nearby residents during one of those increasingly more frequent times when sudden changes in the weather turn such small streams into surging flows of water threatening a flash flood.
But once for many rural communities they were an essential part of life, when surface water, and wells provided water for drinking, cooking, and washing as well as irrigating the crops.
I have long been fascinated by them, more so because many have vanished underground, long ago confined to brick culverts and all but forgotten, while others have apparently dried up.
Here in Chorlton there are still a handful which flow through the township, although some are now buried.
There are others which while they appear to have dried up will be there waiting for a particularly wet winter to bubble to the surface.
Some once flowed across Chorlton Park, and after Corporation acquired the site which is now Southern Cemetery, much work had to be done to drain the area, involving a severs of culverts running down Barlow Moor Road, and under Hardy Lane, and out to the river.
Andy was out to the west of Wythenshawe Hall last week and took these of the Baguley Brook.
I went looking for information on this particular water course, but unless I missed an entry, it is slim pickings.
That said I am convinced someone will know something and pass on the information.
We shall see.
Location; Wythenshawe
Pictures, Baguley Brook, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson
There is a need for a book on the whole Baguley area. Baguley Hall, the market gardens etc.
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