Looking for the Blackheath Hospital ........... and finding it

Now I thought I had found Blackheath Hospital, but alas it is not so.

Nurses, Starting, Green, Leadbetter & Lines, May 1931

For while there is a very impressive private hospital with that name at 40-42 Lee Terrace it is not the one, I am looking for.

It was only opened in 1984, having had a varied history including as a private residency, a school, and old people’s home and even during the Second World War as a fire station.*

And so it cannot be the one where a young Jean Lines trained in 1931.

I must admit I doubted that it would be that easy to find, more so because many of the ways of locating the place are denied to me.

So while I have maps and street directories of Blackheath they do not stretch to the 1930s.

All I have so far is an entry in the 1932 electoral register for Jean Lines who was living at 32 St John’s Park, along with five other women.

This is all the more frustrating given that I have quite a few pictures of Ms. Lines and other members of the family, which come from the family collection of Frances Jones.**

Jean Lines left of centre

Like many such collections they are a mix of professional photographs and snaps.

And of these snaps there are three of Jean Lines and a caption which links her to a hospital in Blackheath where she was training to be a nurse.

Of course, if I were dealing with Greater Manchester I would be confident that I could track it and her down, but alas Blackheath is a long way from where I live.

And my hospital may not even have been called Blackheath Hospital, but it is or was out there in 1931.

That said there will be someone who knows, and can point me in the right direction, which will add to what I know of this young woman.

Jean Lines  (training at Blackheath)

We shall see.

And within minutes of posting the story and the quest to find Jean's hospital, Frances came up with a link to the place I having looking for.  

It comes from that very interesting site, Lost Hospitals of London, which I have used in  the past but had forgotten about, leaving me just to to thank Frances and post the link.

I could of course just lift the information , but that's not how I work.

Location; Blackheath

Pictures; from the family collection of Frances Jones

*Paradise  Tree Care, https://treesurgeonsblackheath.co.uk/blackheath-se3-places-of-interest-hospital-pubs-bars-and-the-royal-standard/

**Stories behind the pictures ………https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/06/stories-behind-pictures.html

***Blackheath & Charlton Hospital, Shooters Hill, Blackheath, SE3, Lost Hospitals of London, https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/blackheathandcharlton.html?fbclid=IwAR02-vedWbKnRmGT0daOLWtxunBcvFXsGHmlvZVtut_XLHJ1PPFnxMu9RtM

The Lost Rivers of Manchester

The lost rivers of Manchester have an abiding fascination for me not least because there are so many of them and also so little evidence of where they run.

Until fairly recently I could name just a handful all of which were in the city centre and which  appear for just brief stretches before disappearing into dark culverts.

But there are plenty more and a lot of them are here on the south side of the city.  Some have fared better than others. Our own Chorlton Brook comes out into the light of day by Hough End Hall and can be seen as it flows on through the township to join the Mersey.  Others like the Longford Brook and the Black Brook are now completely buried while others like the Rough Leech Gutter have been pretty much forgotten.

I was reminded of this recently when I came across the Platt and Ley Brooks on a walk along the Fallowfield Loop.

Both flow openly along the old railway track and are just two of a network that crisscrossed south Manchester.

Most by the late 19th century had become polluted but there would have been a time when they would have been an important resource for all the rural communities.

And in beginning to track them down I discovered The Lost River of Manchester*.  It was written by Geoffrey Ashworth in 1987 and carefully tracks the streams, brooks and water courses which by and large have bricked over and gurgle their way along unseen.

Sadly it is now out of print and copies on Amazon are going for £60, but it is available from the library and may one day be republished.

*Ashworth, Geoffrey, The Lost River of Manchester, Willow Publishing, 1987

Pictures; courtesy of Willow Publishing, http://www.willowpublishingtimperley.co.uk/

John Bull ....on the wireless today

Now here is one I will be listening too, more so as debate on national identity in the wake of Brexit rumbles on.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origin of this personification of the English everyman and his development as both British and Britain in the following centuries. He first appeared along with Lewis Baboon (French) and Nicholas Frog (Dutch) in 1712 in a pamphlet that satirised the funding of the War of the Spanish Succession. 

The author was John Arbuthnot, a Scottish doctor and satirist who was part of the circle of Swift and Pope, and his John Bull was the English voter, overwhelmed by taxes that went not so much into the war itself but into the pockets of its financiers. For the next two centuries, Arbuthnot’s John Bull was a gift for cartoonists and satirists, especially when they wanted to ridicule British governments for taking advantage of the people’s patriotism.

With Judith Hawley, Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, Miles Taylor, Professor of British History and Society at Humboldt, University of Berlin and Mark Knights Professor of History at the University of Warwick

Producer: Simon Tillotson"*

It will be broadcast just after 9 today and is then available by following the link.

Picture; JOHNNY BULL and the ALEXANDRIANS (1814) By William Charles Engraving, Political cartoon.

*John Bull ....In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018nsd

In search of the Rough Leech Gutter

Every winter we get the Edge Lane Lake which depending on the amount of rain that has fallen can either be a puddle or some quite extraordinary expanse of water.

Not that I ever gave it much thought but more recently it has seemed to me that this is the Rough Leech Gutter.

It’s there on the old maps from the 1840s and runs from St Werburghs, following a line which takes in Corkland Road before cutting down close to the Four Banks and heading off towards Edge Lane and on to Turn Moss.

On its course and in its time it would have provided water for Pit Brow and Clough Farms as well as the grand house at Oak Bank before emptying into a large pond by Turn Moss Farm.  Already by 1841 a small section where it crossed High Lane and Edge Lane was culverted and it may just be that this now very old brick or stone culvert is the cause for the “lake.”

And there were lots of them.

All now have vanished underground with the exception of Chorlton Brook which appears into the light at various points around Chorlton before flowing into the Mersey.

There are some that crossed what is now Chorlton Park, another which seems to have flowed close to Acres Road and others which were probably no more than ditches for most of the year.

A few might have dried up but the others will still be there quietly and unobtrusively trickling along, hidden and forgotten.

And by and large they are just that.  I asked the Corporation for any records and they passed me on the Environmental Agency who were very helpful and very thorough but could only tell me about the Chorlton and Longford Brooks.

Not that this should surprise us for many of these water courses will have gone underground from the 1840s through to the beginning of the 20^th century.

There may be records in the papers of the Egerton and Lloyd estates who owned most of the township, but I doubt there will be any other records. 

So in the absence of paperwork it’s down to looking at that maps and listening to people’s experiences, which is how I can be fairly certain that the Rough Leech Gutter follows close to the line of Wilbraham Road somewhere by Silverwood Avenue going under Brundretts Road before appearing at Edge Lane.  And it was a chance remark that I made on one of my recent walks and talks which prompted Tony who lives on Brundretts to tell me of the damp cellars at one end of the road.

And damp cellars are a possible clue.  But there are others.  Phillip Lloyd once told me that his mother could remember the sound of Longford Brook which flows further north and west of the township as it made its way underground.  But as he said to hear it you had to be up early have no surrounding noise and hope for a day of rain the evening before.

Still they are all there and I suppose the best I can say they are all in the book.

Pictures; detail of the 1841 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the collection of Andrew Simpson

In praise of Central Ref

Now I never tire of visiting Central Ref

The Social Sciences Library, 2014

This is where I spent most Saturday mornings from September 1969 till June ’72 and it remained a place of serious study for the next forty years.

I always got there early no matter where the Friday night had taken me and always chose to sit on one of those tables close to the central admin hub.

And over the years the spot rather became a special one from where I could gaze upward at the dome and out across the vast room.

I have to confess I did do a lot of staring out both from underneath and over the top of the reading lights over the years.

This was partly because of the tedium of some of what I had to read and also just because there was so much to distract me.

It would start with that sudden bang as a book was dropped on a table and carried on as you picked up  whispered conversations somewhere around the hall and continued as long as there were people walking past.

The same place, 1938

Looking at Neil Simpson’s picture of the renovated Social Sciences Library is to be taken back a full four decades and it compares well with Kurt Hübschmann’s 1938 photograph of the same spot.

Now I am a keen admirer of Mr Hübschmann’s work much of which featured in Picture Post. He left Germany in 1934 and was one of founders of the magazine which started up in 1938 and ran to 1957.

I grew up with Picture Post which regularly came through our letter box but it was also available to flip through at the doctor’s and some even made their way into our school.

So I am not surprised that Mr Hübschmann should have been on hand to snap the Central Ref in the October of 1938 just four years after it had been opened.

Nor was he alone in wanting to capture something of the Ref.  The first exhibition staged in the Library was photographed by Stewart Bale Ltd who perfectly recorded the simple beauty of the building’s design.

The Exhibition of Library Treasures, 1934

I think we are in the area which became Archives and Local History and as much as the area was a second home to me over the last decade I have to say this picture showing the “Opening Exhibition of Library Treasures” makes me wish I had known it like this.

And that neatly brings me to the appeal for memories of the Ref as it was.

There will still be people who will have visited the library as students and those who accompanied their parents to Christmas shows in the basement theatre which opened its curtains in 1952 and perhaps like me also remember the light displays which played over the safety curtains in the interval.

Pictures; the Social Sciences Library, 2014 from the collection of Neil Simpson, the same in 1934, Kurt Hübschmann, m51687, & Opening Exhibition of Library Treasures” Stewart Bale Ltd, m81672, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Stories behind the pictures ………

Now I never tire of looking at other people’s family pictures.

Mrs Wyatt, Kathleen and Mrs. Lines, date unknown

More so when they stretch back to the beginning of the last century and include just enough clues to set me off looking for the story behind the photograph.

And so, I was very pleased when Frances offered to share some from her family album., which “were of my aunt's family, but she was my aunt by marriage, so I don't know any of the people in the photos”.

All of which presents the challenge and that wish to bring them back out of the shadows.

At which point I do have to say that “bringing them back out of the shadows” seems a tad pretentious and raises the question of whether they want to be brought out and can be argued is an unwarranted intrusion.

Unknown woman, undated

But then that has never stopped me.

So, to the pictures of which there are many.

Susan Line, & Jean, Torquay, date unknown

Some are very formal, taken by a professional photographer and made into picture postcards, while others are the classic snap, taken in the moment and then forgotten.

Luckily most of the collection comes with names, locations and even dates, all of which will make it easier to track them back across time.

Added to which some names are repeated and even form part of a wider group of images which show one individual as a child and later training as a nurse in Blackheath.

Nurses, Starting, Green, Leadbetter, & Lines, May 1931, Blackheath

What I particularly like are the unusual shots ranging from an elderly woman on a motorbike in Torquay to a mother and child outside a tent, a scene from the Lido at Lugano and an unnamed, and undated woman in formal pose.

The Lido, Lugarno, unknown date

But what I particularly like is the snap of Mis Wyatt, Kathleen and Mrs Lewis, somewhere in I guess the 1920s and 1930s.

It is the mix of a casual pose, the smile of the woman in middle and those fashionable clothes.

Some of the individuals will be easier to find than others, and the most promising seems to be Jean Lines who appears in several images and was training to be a nurse in Blackheath in southeast London in 1931.

Equally promising might be the picture of Geoffrey H. E. Lines, aged just 6 months “at Blackpool, 1917, outside Father’s tent”.  

It should be possible to find him in the record but raises tantalizing questions about the woman.  Was she, his mother, and why were they staying in the tent?

Geoffrey H. E. Lines, aged just 6 months at Blackpool, 1917

We shall see.

Location; all over

Pictures; early 20th century, from the collection of Frances Jones

Living in a piece of history, the Progress Estate Well Hall, in the spring of 1964

Lovelace Green, today

The Progress Estate in Well Hall was almost fifty years old when we moved there in the March of 1964 and it has remained one of the places I have the fondest memories for.

It was built in 1915 by the Government as homes for the workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich and was originally called the Well Hall Estate before changing its name after it had been bought by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society.

And the history of its development and construction is pretty impressive. In little over five months from the decision to build 1,200 houses “to the highest town planning standards” the first 400 were ready and by the December the remaining 600 were completed.

Well Hall Road circa 1915, © Greenwich Heritage Centre

The London County Council had had arranged temporary classrooms for 680 children from the new estate which were in place before the December date.

In all 5,000 men had worked on the site and at one point completions were at the rate of one house every two hours.*

Inside the houses were provided with “a big range for cooking with a mantelpiece and a closed or open fire with a boiler behind. A kettle was boiled for washing up and there was a black copper in the corner for washday.”**

Fifty years on our house on Well Hall Road had lost all of those features but something of what it had once been was clear from the layout.

Ross Way, circa 1950s

On the ground floor were three rooms. The front room gave off onto a small kitchen while on the other side of the stairs was a larger room which ran from the small hall back to the garden.

Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a small bathroom.

Now Nikolaus Pevsner in his Buildings of England described the estate as “the first and most spectacular of the Garden suburbs built by the government to house munitions workers” ...” a tour de force of picturesque design.”

Ross Way, today

Nor is this claim an exaggeration.  It compares very well with our own Chorltonville built just five years earlier and is on a much grander scale.

True it lacked the facilities of the ville and the houses were much smaller but then the Progress was built during the war and in a great hurry.

I also suspect that it represented a real step up the housing ladder for many of its inhabitants.

And in its way that is exactly how I felt about 294 Well Hall Road.

It was smaller than the tall terraced house we had lived in on Lausanne Road in Peckham and lacked both the period features and long garden of our old home.

But the compensations far outweighed these drawbacks.  Here was a place which was open light and full of green.  Behind Well Hall Road the estate wandered off in different directions throwing up differently designed properties and dominating the sky line were the woods with Woolwich and the river beyond.

Well Hall Road circa 1915, © Greenwich Heritage Centre

And there was always the counter attraction of the Pleasuance with its Tudor Barn, moat and ancient walls along with the High Street and the Palace.

Never underestimate the many attractions that our new home offered and if for the next two years after we moved I still had to attend the old school in New Cross, the contrast of areas only made Well Hall and Eltham all that better.

All of which is bordering on romantic nostalgia and so instead I shall reflect on the place the estate has in history.

It was part of that Garden city movement which aimed to plan urban areas as self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", and containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture.

Purists will no doubt point out that it fell short of Ebenezer Howard’s plan in a number of ways but it did have the green belt and in time came to have all the facilities and is still pretty much a very pleasant place to live.


Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; of Well Hall Road circa 1915  courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, www.greenwichheritage.org and the estate today from Progress Estate Conservation Area, Character Appraisal Greenwich Council, 

*Progress Estate Conservation Area, Character Appraisal Greenwich Council, www.greenwich.gov.uk

** John Kennet, http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/case-studies/progress-estate

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... the plays wot mum wrote

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Well Hall Road, 2014

For as long as I can remember our mum wrote plays, short stories and worked on a novel about life in south east London.

She had begun writing in the RAF during the last war when as a typist she had all that a writer could need ........ spare time, a typewriter, and paper.

All of which were the building blocks to give full vent to her vivid imagination.

On those long quiet moments on an RAF station in Lincolnshire she wrote about what she experienced including the loss of life and the fears and triumphs of the air crews and supporting teams.

Mum and friend circa 1942

Later as we were growing up she tried her hand at writing plays discovering there was a market for the three act play which was aimed specifically at women’s groups.

The basic requirement was that most of the parts had to be for women, and while the plot could be anything from a comedy to a murder there had to be opportunities for women of all ages.

I can’t now remember how many she produced but I know it was a fair few, although sadly none of the published plays have survived and as yet I can’t find any reference to them anywhere.

But we do have the manuscript of the book she was writing on along with some short stories.

Looking back we never thought it was unusual and yet here was a woman whose formal education had ended at 14, and who had spoken only German until she was three years old.

She began work in a local silk factory and went onto have a succession of jobs until the war swept her up and deposited her in “bomber county.”

Later after moving to London she began writing again, using at first a battered old typewriter before acquiring a slick “Oliveti” model.

And as someone who uses a computer all the time I marvel at those who wrote using a typewriter which doesn’t allow the instant use of the delete button, the facility to cut and paste, or either a word or spell check.

Mum in 1949

On the other hand it has left me with a collection of paper copies of her literary output.

The manuscripts maybe on flimsy paper, now are over laden with a musty smell and tinged with yellow but they offer up a link to mum, more powerful than an electronic text.

That said the computer and social media have offered up a huge opportunity for people to record and share  their memories, and publish both photographs and paintings which might otherwise never have seen the light of day.

All of which demonstrates the amount of talent there is out there and by extension just how much of that talent in the past never saw the light of day.

By contrast on facebook and other sites people regularly post fine photographs which are as good as any “art work” and write in the most vivid and direct way about growing up and the places that mean so much too them.

And yes I am sure that if mum were still writing today she would have embraced them all.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; 294, courtesy of Chrissy Rose, 2015, and mum from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Refuge Assurance Clock Tower ...... another story from Tony Goulding

 Knowing of my recent fascination with Manchester’s public clocks, my friend, Andrea, kindly sent me this photograph of one on Oxford Street, taken from outside the O2 Ritz, on Whitworth Street West. 

The clock tower by night, June 2022

It is a feature of a Grade 11 listed building, which has been an aspect of the Manchester skyline for close to 130 years, that is now a hotel but from its construction in 1893-5 for almost a century it served as the headquarters of the Refuge Assurance Company (1)

 This iconic building was designed by the celebrated Victorian architect, Alfred Waterhouse, with additions, after his death on the 22nd August, 1905, by his son Paul Waterhouse in 1906 and, in 1920 by Stanley Birkett. 

The building, whose three phases complement each other was finally finished in 1930. The impressive 66 m (217 ft.) clock tower formed part of the second phase completed in 1912; its clock faces feature a stylised depiction of the Manchester Bee. 

Other Alfred Waterhouse buildings in Manchester include The Town Hall, Owens College, and Manchester Assize Court which was a victim of German bombing raids during the second world war. 

The Clocktower in 1977

He was also responsible for The Natural History Museum in London and The Liverpool Royal Infirmary, in his native city. 

The Stockport County Express on the 15th June, 1893 published a very poignant description of the plans for the new building; “The main entrance ----------- is surmounted by a tower and spire which will be seen from a considerable distance”. Indeed, this was the case as could be testified by generations of returning exiled Mancunians who would have espied the welcome sight as they approached Oxford Road station on their way to London Road/Piccadilly.

On a personal note, as someone who made this journey numerous times as a young man, I can still recall the thrill when the REFUGE sign was spotted especially on a dark night in winter when it was illuminated with red lights. A symbolic “welcome home” message.

The Refuge Assurance Company moved their headquarters to Wilmslow, Cheshire on Friday the 6th November, 1987. The building was left empty for nearly 9 years while an alternative use for it was sought. 

The tower lit up for Manchester's Civic Week, 1926 

Eventually, in 1996, after a £7 million renovation, it opened as The Palace Hotel. After several transfers of ownership and accompanying refurbishments and name-changes it is now called the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel. 

The Refuge Buildings original (1895) main entrance in 1957

The “Refuge” name has continued in the name of the first-class restaurant situated on the ground floor which I was lucky enough to visit, on one occasion, for an awards ceremony as a guest of my Housing Association.

The internal size of the building can be gauged by over 900 clerks being once employed within its walls. Originally these would only be males and when the company started to take on female staff any fraternisation between the sexes was actively discouraged. 

They had separate starting and finishing times staggered lunch breaks and even separate staircases. Any staff outings which were organised had to be for different places for men and women. Later these rules were relaxed and the basement ballroom was used by staff  at lunchtime. 

The Waterloo Hotel, Burton Road, Withington in 1962

There were also thriving cultural and sporting societies e. g. an Amateur Opera and Dramatic Society who performed on the stage in the basement ballroom and a bowling club whose headquarters were at the Waterloo Hotel, 23, Burton Road, Withington, Manchester.

Pictures; The clock tower by night, June 2022 courtesy of Andrea Martinez. Refuge Clock m 62254, Refuge original, 1895, main entrance m 56301 - L. Kaye (1957), the tower lit up for Manchester's Civic Week, 1926 m 07624, and The Waterloo Hotel m 42873 J.F. Harris (1962) all courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Notes: -

 1) The Refuge Assurance Company was founded in 1858 at 58, Astley Street, Dukinfield, Cheshire and went by the elongated name of “Refuge Friend in Deed Life Assurance and Sick Fund Friendly Society” but this was, unsurprisingly, soon shortened to its much more succinct title.

Acknowledgements: - As usual I have delved into multiple sources the most useful and generally more reliable is the newspaper archive on Find My Past but I found other additional information on the Tameside Local History Forum and the Dictionary of Greater Manchester Architects 1800-1940 database created by the Manchester Branch of The Victorian Society

Relics ……. out by Whaley Bridge

Now I have David Easton to thank for these two pictures of a bit of our agricultural history.

There will be plenty of people out there who will be able to name the make of tractor, the year it rolled off the production line and sundry other bits of detail.

All of which will advance our collective knowledge, but for now I know that according to David “It's at Cliff Farm near Whaley Bridge. 

It's a fairly remote location on the side of Whaley Moor. 

The tractor is just to the side of the farmhouse and probably once worked the land. 

Perhaps made redundant by one of the monster machines used on farms these days”.

I guess we have all come across such abandoned machines and wondered about their story.  

Some have fared better and sit in agricultural museums, while others have been saved as tourist features like the one in the grounds of Worsley Hall much climbed over by young children.

And then there is this one.

Going slowly rusty but still sporting its original red paint and nestling under the branches of a tree.

The romantic in me likes to think it has been left to guard the fields, but that is tosh, and instead it just waits its fate.

But it has prompted me to research the history tractors and their use on our farms, not I know an original idea, but I think it will be fun.

We shall see.

Location; Whaley Bridge

Pictures; the tractor, Whaley Bridge, 2022, from the collection of David Easton

Will you spot Peter in Chorlton .......... and claim your £1m note?

 And yes of course it is an outrageous piece of self-promotion ……… how could it be otherwise?

Four Bank Corner, circa 1995

But the question still remains.

In the next few weeks Peter will be out and about in that part of Chorlton once known as Martledge taking pictures for the second volume in our nothing to do in chorlton series.

The first book has proved a runaway success, and so we been asked to repeat the format.*

The idea is that simple one where we choose six locations for you to sit, do nothing while we will tell stories of what went on at each of the six spots.

Tales which include the role of the Titanic in the history of Chorlton Library, a forgotten property developer, and the tale of a much-polluted stream, not forgetting a chunk of our lost industrial history and the magnificent Chorlton Ice Rink.

All of which means his beat will be the stretch from the old Four Banks up to the library and onto Longford Road.

The back of the Sedge Lynn, 2018

At which point keen fans of the 1935 Graham Green novel Brighton Rock will mutter, “cheeky blighters they stole that from Mr. Green".

And I cannot tell a fib, because as the plot unfolds a rather nasty criminal gang leader learns that a newspaper reporter called Fred Hale, will be in town for one day for a promotional stunt playing "Kolley Kibber", and leaving cards around town that can be redeemed for a monetary prize, with a larger prize for the first person who publicly identifies Fred as Kolley Kibber.

That said Mr. Green lifted the idea from real life in the form of a clever ploy by the Westminister Gazette, hatched and executed in August 1927.

According to my Wikipedia, “Anonymous employees [of the newspaper] visited seaside resorts and afterwards wrote down a detailed description of the town they visited, without giving away its name. 

Peter the £m note man

They also described a person they happened to see that day and declared him to be the "Lobby Lud" of that issue. Readers were given a pass phrase and had to try to guess both the location and the person described by the reporters. Anyone carrying the newspaper could challenge Lobby Lud with the phrase and receive five pounds.

The competition was created because people on holiday were known to be less likely to buy a newspaper. Some towns and large factories had holiday fortnights, called "wakes weeks" in the north of England, when the town or works would all decamp at the same time. 

Circulation could drop considerably in the summer and proprietors hoped prizes would increase it".**

To which Peter adds, "I think Lobby Lud was also used by the Daily Mirror.

I remember when I was very young in Preston my Dad took me down Town to see if we could spot him. You had to be carrying a copy of that days Daily Mirror, and you had to say, 'You are Lobby Lud and I claim my £5'”

So there you have it ........imitation is  the best form of flattery, and to retain the historic continuity Peter will offer a prize of a £1m pound note to the prize winner who will have to say... “You are Peter Topping and I claim my £1m pound note”. 

The bank roll

The lucky recipient  does not  have to have a copy of the book, nothing to do in chorlton, and there will only be two prizes per day.

Leaving me just to say volume 2 of nothing to do in chorlton will be published later this year.

Location; Martledge

Pictures; Four Bank Corner, circa 1995, courtesy of Steve, the back of the Sedge Lynn, 2018, Peter the £m note nan and the bank roll

* The man who stole Chorlton’s village Green …..a lost stream …. and a church quarrel, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-man-who-stole-chorltons-village.html

**Lobby Lud, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobby_Lud

A little bit of New York in Vienna .......... travelling the Amerikaner

I always like those little messy stories which are not what you expect and take you off in all sorts of directions.

The Amerikaer in Vienna, 2006

This is Peter’s painting of a tram in Vienna which he told me came from New York.

Now there is nothing odd about transport networks buying foreign rolling stock.

All around the world tram and railway companies along with bus operators regularly buy both new and second hand.

What makes this one just a little different is the history behind it.

There have been trams in Vienna since 1865 and today it is the fifth largest tram network in the world with 175.9 kilometres, and 1,071 stations.*

And for those who revel in tram facts, in 2013, 293 million passengers travelled on Vienna’s 525 tramcars.

The service reached its peak during the interwar years but like so many European cities it was much knocked about during the Second World War.

In the case of Vienna most of its 4000 trams had been badly damaged with 400 of them beyond repair.

At which point the Amerikaner enters the story, because these were the trams Vienna acquired in 1948 under the Marshall Plan.**

There were 41 of them, shipped over from New York, and they became known as the Amerikaner.  They were slightly wider than the Austrian ones, had air operated doors, automatic retractable ramps and seat backs which could be changed so that passengers always faced forwards.  At which point Ron will point out that our old Corporation trams had the same facility.

What makes the Amerikaner just that bit more special is that New York abandoned its trams in the 1950s, leaving only its overhead Roosevelt Island Tramway.

So unusual, I used it again

That said there were plans to reintroduce trams to New York a year ago and I must check out whether that has happened.***

So not only was Peter’s tram journey a tad unusual he was riding history.

No wonder he was moved to paint the picture.



Location; Vienna, with an option on New York

Painting; the Amerikaner  © Peter Topping, 2008

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Trams in Vienna, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Vienna

**The Marshall Plan, or the European Recovery Program, was a bold American initiative to assist Western Europe rebuild it economies with $13 billion.

*** New York tram stages an unlikely comeback, Robert Wright, Financial Times, New York, February 4, 2016,  https://www.ft.com/content/133c1c58-cb5c-11e5-a8ef-ea66e967dd44

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 138 ….. a cherry tree .... assorted buried pets ..... and a few design mistakes

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The tree, 2022

Now soon after the Scott's moved into Beech Road, they planted a cherry tree.

The tree, 2022

And not any old cherry tree, but a Morello cherry tree, and a full 70 years later it was still giving bumper crops, which we found difficult to distribute to friends, family and the freezer.

But then just a decade later the yield had fallen away and one of the main branches threatened to tumble into the road, and with a great degree of regret the tree had to go.

The plan was always to replace it and despite our Josh’s persistent reminders it took a while before we got round to doing it.

That was perhaps fifteen years ago, and the tree is now doing what it’s predecessor did, offering amazing blossom in the spring and a growing abundance of fruit each summer.

Although last year we lost the crop in just a matter of days to some passing pigeons, which is a lesson to get out there and harvest the fruit first.

And to remember why we planted the tree which was less about the cherries and more about replacing a bit of the old house, and in in so doing adding to the continuity of Joe and Mary Ann’s home.

The tree, 1974

After all, if the owners of those grand mansions dating back centuries can make the claim “to be only custodians” even those of us living in more humble piles should be able to do the same.

All the more so as our house has been much knocked about over the last half century, with badly executed modernization projects and equally cack-handed attempts at restoration, some of which I have to hold my hand up and admit to being guilty.

But we never tampered with the actual structure of the building, no rooms were knocked through and no gigantic panoramic windows introduced.

Partly because of resources but also by a lucky belief that the actual original plan worked then and still works 107 years later.

And that decision has been vindicated as each of the kids has come back to  live for a short while before heading off again.

So,  by not  knocking through from front to back, and kitchen into the dining room has meant we can be a family but have the room to let them as adults go off and occupy their own space. 

That said you can over do continuity, so along with the cherry tree, we planted four fruit trees in the back which on reflection was less continuity and more a recipe for an over grown and dark back garden.

The tree,1974

Still, we haven’t followed the Scott’s in burying all of the family pets in the garden.  I have it on good authority that in their time the back garden was really just a pet’s cemetery.  We buried just two the cats, and our Saul’s superman who lost his head.

The remaining cats, and Bagel the Labrador, were taken away by the Vet while  the assorted rabbits, and guinea pigs escaped to better homes.

All of which will be familiar to any one who has lived in the same place for decades.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; that cheery tree, 2022 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and its older predecessor, 1973 courtesy of Lois Eslden

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

Sunlight and a white van ………….. summer on Beech Road

Now I have every expectation that the weather will change.

So, despite the sun cracking the paving stones as I write, it is a pretty sure certainty that when this goes live Sammy Sunshine will have been banished by those milky grey clouds that stretch down from above and sit on the roof tops.

Worse still it could be raining.

None of which detracts from that late  Monday afternoon when the Rec was bathed in sunshine and a white van caught the sun.

Location; Beech Road, Chorlton

Picture; Sunlight and the white van, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sapori di Sicilia …….. the Flavours of Sicily

Now I like the Italian custom of taking cakes and pastries when visiting family and friends.

A selection of the pastries

Last week at Rosa’s when the family gathered on the Sunday, Johnny brought a tray full of them.

Inside the shop

And yesterday, when we decided on breakfast out, we gravitated to Sapori di Sicilia, which is on the Viale Belforte 68, 21100, in Varese.

The area is a mix of residential properties, a range of everyday shop, including a supermarket and some industrial units.

My favourite is always a bombolone which is a doughnut filled usually with custard, jam, or chocolate, and for me it is always custard.

But these you can get almost anywhere, while at the Sapori di Sicilia, they specialize in Sicilian food, and along with a range of wonderful pastries there are piles of savory ones not unlike our own pasties.

And of course ice cream ....

And of these the one they make filled with a mix of rice and vegetables, is just perfect.

So that is it, I could say more, but I won’t.

Location; Varese

Pictures; Sapori di Sicilia, Varese, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

In a garden near you …..…. and a bit of Chorlton’s history

Now, I am always in awe of other people’s gardens.

Our garden, 2022

I know what I would like ours to look like, but a combination of laziness and bad design means ours will always be the one that time forgot.

So, I am always ready to visit that annual event where people throw open their gardens in a good cause.

All of which is a lead into this year’s Chorlton Open Gardens which runs from Saturday 25th till Sunday June 26th.*

"The first Chorlton Open Gardens event was held in June 2011 in aid of the charity 'Freedom from Torture’ (formerly the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture).

Twenty-nine sites, including gardens and yards, allotments, a school garden, local plant nursery, and grocery roof garden were open to the public. A thousand programmes were sold by four local businesses and volunteers.

The feedback was very positive and people enjoyed the communal atmosphere, the variety of garden spaces, refreshments, and learning more about garden design, flowers and vegetables that can be grown locally”.**

Urban flowers, 2022

All you need to visit the gardens is a £5 programme, one for each person, with accompanied under-13s free. Programmes contain our handy map; they will be available from a number of shops in Chorlton in late May.  Click here for list of shops and their opening times.**

But prize gardens are of course nothing new to Chorlton.

And I rather guess Samuel and Mary Ecroyd were pretty pleased with their garden in their new house on Nicolas Road.***

Number 91 was a bigger property than their previous one on Oswald Road and while the garden may have been much the same size there was still open land to the rear with views across to the Baptist and Unitarian Chapels on Wilbraham Road as well as some of the posher houses Chorlton had to offer.

And in 1909 Mr Ecroyd was awarded a prize for one of the “Best-kept Gardens in the district” at the Chorlton Society’s Show.

A prize garden, 1909

Now the Society had been established in 1894 and in its way is another indication of how Chorlton had moved from a rural community to a suburb of Manchester.

In a little over two decades many of the fields had been lost and in their place were rows of new houses with small neat gardens and yards which cried out for flowers, bushes and orderly borders.

It was almost as if in the advance of brick and glass the new inhabitants needed the greenery, and according to the newspaper reports the shows were an important part of the community.

Chorlton prize winners, 1909

So, nothing much has changed then.

Where to buy a programme https://www.chorltonopengardens.org.uk/help-information/where-to-buy-a-programme/

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Our garden, 2022, and wild flowers on a wall, Manchester Road, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Mr Ecroyd ‘s “Best-kept Gardens in the district” from the Manchester Courier, 1909, courtesy of Sally Dervan

* Chorlton Open Gardens https://www.chorltonopengardens.org.uk/chorlton-open-gardens-2022/

** Where to buy a programme https://www.chorltonopengardens.org.uk/help-information/where-to-buy-a-programme/

***Winning the best kept garden on Nicolas Road in 1909, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/winning-best-kept-garden-on-nicholas.html