Lonely houses ………. on the edge of Chorlton …. and a mystery

When you get it so wrong!  

The story below now carries one of those WARNINGS ....... that reading it will fully take you into La La Land, because having written it yesterday, posted it today I can confess this afternoon it is all wrong.

Manor Drive, 1975

Thereby proving that history can be misleading, or just simply I need to back to research school.

And I have Chris O' Connor to thank for putting me straight.

The cottages in the story were further north of Red Bank Farm which featured in the story.

So tomorrow there will be the start of the correction .... read on only if the weather has stopped you going out.

Now if you take a stroll down Manor Drive there are some very large houses.

Red Bank Farm and those buildings, 1845

But tucked away at the top of the road are a line of more modest properties and it is these that I have become interested in.

It all started last week when I was a guest in one of them enjoying a Macmillan cake and coffee morning, and during my stay our host referred to the houses as belonging to the farm which had stood close by.

This was Red Bank Farm, and it was located by a loop in the Mersey and was on the very edge of the township.  In the 1840s it was farmed by James Alderley who rented 47 acres from the Egerton estate and was a mix of arable and meadow land, with field names like Linney Eye, Barn Field and Backside Field.

Look at any of the old maps from 1845 onwards and there can be found a line of buildings which look to be a combination of some residential properties and what might be a long farm building.*

Earlier maps from the beginning of the 19th century also hint at the presence of these buildings.

And so, the search began.  I was confident that we would turn up some farm workers who occupied the properties, but the census returns, and Rate Books have yet to identify any candidates.

Red Bank Farm, circa 1900

The Alderley family continued at Red Bank into the 20th century, growing the number of acres they farmed, before moving to the much bigger Barlow Hall Farm sometime after 1901.

Their place was taken by James and Mary Ryan who had worked Old Fold Farm in Burnage in 1901 but a decade later had taken up residence at Red Bank.

But there is no sign of anyone else in the vicinity.

So perhaps sometime after the demise of the farm the near by buildings were converted into cottages.

That said I might have it wrong, and our cottages are what was once the farmhouse, unlikely I think but Red Bank Farm is listed as having 10 rooms in 1911.

At present I don’t have access to much after 1911.  The census for 1921 doesn’t show the Ryan’s at Red Bank, nor does the 1939 Register.

All of which leaves me to go into Central Ref and trawl the directories for the period after 1911, and hope that someone in the cottages has their deeds which might just offer up the names of who occupied them and when the first residents moved in.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manor Drive, Dawson, A, 1975, m18084, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass Red Bank Farm from the Tithe map, 1845, and the Mersey and Red Bank Farm, circa early 20th century,  from the Lloyd Collection

*The tithe map of 1845, the 1854 OS map of Lancashire and the 1894 OS map of South Lancashire.