At the Horse and Jockey ………..with an embarrassing confession

Now for nearly three decades I have told anyone who wanted to listen that the half-timbered appearance of the Horse and Jockey was a relatively modern addition dating from the 1920s.

And for this bold statement I would cite our own historian John Lloyd whose book on Chorlton was published in 1970.*

So confident was I of this that I reproduced it in print ……….. a judgement which has come back to bite me on the bum.

It seems Mr. Lloyd never offered up that date, but instead wrote“the black and white was applied about 1907/8”, which is all the more embarrassing because this date appears in his second book which has sat on my bookshelf for four decades.**

The confusion arose because the caption also referred to the date 1928 and with one careless reading rolled down the whopper.

But I am glad I rectified it, and with a nodding apology to Mr. Lloyd who died in 1991, I am reminded of that simple dictum of always check your sources and always look closely at what you take for granted.

Which if I had, would have alerted me to that basic mistake which is all there in this early 20th century photograph with its half-timbered Horse & Jockey.

Chorlton Green was always a favourite of the travelling commercial photographer, and this one turns up again and again.

What makes it more fascinating is the detail.

Just behind the woman and pram is an advert for the Pavilion which was on the corner of Wilbraham and Buckingham Roads.

It was our first cinema and opened in 1904, and despite stiff completion from the two purposes built picture houses on Barlow Moor Road and Manchester Road limped into the late  1920s before closing down.

But I am also drawn to Mrs Gertrude Green sweet shop at number 5 Chorlton Green and the delivery cart for Camwal which may have been unloading mineral water and soft drinks to her shop.

The firm had begun in 1878 as the Chemists' Aerated and Mineral Waters Association Limited and by 1895 had factories in London, Bristol, Harrogate and Mitcham.

It can’t be sure but it is likely that around 1901 they changed their name to Camwal or were taken over. Those wooden heavy crates would still be used well into the middle of the century for transporting various soft drinks and beers.

I have written about the picture and gave it a tentative date of 1915, which of course had I made the connection would never have allowed me to be so silly.

So that is it.

Location; Chorlton Green

Picture; the Horse and Jockey on the Green circa 1915, from the Lloyd collection

*The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lloyd, John, 1970

**Looking At Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lloyd, John, 1985