Standing on Chorlton Green ....... remembering the Oven Door

Now there is enough detail in the picture to anchor it in a time long before, but well within living memory.

We are of course on the old village which for a big chunk of the 19th century had been the Wilton family garden.

Directly ahead is the Horse and Jockey, but clearly not the one of today and off there to the right is the Oven Door which at one time was a competitor to that other bakery further up Beech Road.

And there will be some who remember when the Oven Door, was two shops of which the first was a pet shop.

Not that anyone will now know that the first of the two which stands next to the Beech was itself a pub called the Traveller’s Rest.

Although strictly speaking the Traveller’s Rest was actually a beer shop which had opened in the mid 1830s and for many years was run by the Nixon family who also ran that pub over the water.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Chorlton Green, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 144 ……..the squirrel calls ……

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.*

Two squirrels, 2022

I can’t quite remember when the squirrels first came for breakfast, but it won’t be more than a year ago.

That said I am pretty confident that I can remember a time before there were squirrels in the Rec opposite the house.**

Although I suppose until recently I was less attuned to nature and the growing trend for what were wild animals to become urban ones.

Bagel and Tamla, 1983

Of course, having the Meadows so close might explain the appearance of Sidney and Sadie squirrel, along with that other townie animal the fox.

But I can only claim two sightings of a fox, once late at night padding off up Beech Road, and on another occasional also in the early morning when two of them took up residence outside our front door for half an hour.

By contrast the squirrels have pretty much taken up residence in our garden which I am the first to admit comes from us feeding them.

At which point I know someone will point out that feeding wild animals is wrong.  Wrong because it encourages them, wrong because it sustains them and makes them lazy and wrong because it’s wrong.

But we are locked into the breakfast ritual made all the more difficult to break given that on the dot of 7.30 they appear at the kitchen window, and who ever is sitting close to the window gets the job.

Now I very much doubt that Joe and Mary Ann ever coped with a squirrel at breakfast but they were mad keen on all sorts of animals, even leaving the house to the P.D.S.A. in their will and filling the garden with dead cats.

And there are those who can remember Mrs. Scott back in the 1960s feeding the pigeons which would surround her in ever increasing numbers on Beaumont Road making a bee line for the food she threw down.

Harvey, 1988

After the Scott’s there was a few barren years when the house was animal free, before we moved in bringing a baby black Labrador which we called Bagel followed by three stray cats, some gerbils, two rabbits one goldfish.  ***

Not all were ours and not all stayed long but the dog and the cats did.

We had already inherited one stray cat which we called Tamla Motown and took into two more who were called Harvey Moon and Henry Harris.

Tamla had been found at the back of Stephenson’s the hairdresser’s on Wilbraham Road, Harvey turned up on the doorstep and Henry was a victim of some poor behaviour on the part of a gang of lads who had left him in a plastic bag on the Rec.

Their names of course have their own stories.

Tamla speaks for itself, Harvey came from a gentle TV show of the time and Henry was named after a Labour Party canvasser who traveled all the way on the bus from Crumpsall to help in elections.

Two gerbils, 1990s

Our kids all learned to walk holding on to Bagel who like all Labradors was placid  even if he was rapacious.

A characteristic which led him to regularly raid the waste bin and even more disconcerting rise up on his back legs and sweep the work services and then eating anything that had fallen to the floor.

Nor were shoes or nylon stockings free from his avarice.

All of whom were tame compared to the squirrels, but together they are a sort of continuity which links us with Joe and Mary Ann who moved here in 1915 as the first residents.

And just as I posted the story the BBC offered this bit of news, Everyone to live 15 minutes from green space or water in England under plans.**** 

Pictures, two squirrels, 2022, from the collection of Balzano, Bagel and Tamla, circa 1983, Harvey, 1988, and two gerbils, circa 1994,from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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

**Scurry is the most common collective noun for squirrels, a group of squirrels is also called a dray (a nest).

***One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 51 ............ the dog, the cats, two gerbils and a couple of rabbits, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2015/01/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

****Everyone to live 15 minutes from green space or water in England under plans, By Helen Briggs

Environment correspondent, BBC News, January 31st, 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64456455

That mystery in Fog Lane Park, …..

Now as bandstands go the one in Fog Lane Park was not the most attractive examples of a civic bandstand.

The former bandstand, 2020

I grew up with those elaborate iron ones which adorned the parks in my bit of south east London, and have since started collecting them.*

In that pre television, pre cinema and pre wireless age bandstands offered a place to meet, sit and enjoy live music, although by the 1950s when I was growing up they had become less popular.

And many were already sad looking rusty old affairs, which would soon be swept away.  Ours lost its fine iron pillars and decorative bits
 followed by the demolition of the brick platform.

The bandstand in 1962

So  complete was elimination of these bandstands that within a generation their very existence would be all but forgotten.

So, when Barbarella out on a Sunday walk she happened on the circle in Fogg Lane Park,and was mystified, and I have to say so was I.

I toyed with the idea of a former bowling green, but dismissed it for obvious reasons, and speculated that it might have been the site of a pond.

But, rather than stay with speculation I looked up the OS map for 1959, which clearly shows a bandstand at the Parkville Road entrance.

And quick as a flash found a 1962 picture of the bandstand.

The bandstand in 1959

I don’t know when it was built, but the park dates from 1926, and I guess that it was erected around that time or a little later.

Its design resembles the open-air theatre in Chorlton Park which was laid out in 1928.

Which just leaves me to thank Barbarella, and scoop up a description of the park from Didsbury Civic Society.

"Fog Lane Park is off Fog Lane. Didsbury.  It was purchased in 1926 by the Council and was one of first public parks in Manchester.

It is said that Fog Lane Park earned its name from a grass, commonly known as 'Yorkshire Fog' which still grows throughout the park.

The site is comprised mainly of grassland and woodland, but also contains two small lakes, shrub beds, scattered trees, rose gardens and a sensory garden and children's play areas. 

The park is particularly suited to football, having several pitches and a large grassed area.

Welcome to the park, 2020

Fog Lane has an area dedicated to the growth of wildflowers. 

These attract wildlife such as butterflies, dragonflies and a large selection of insects.  In turn, these provide food for a wide variety of birds which visit the park and are then encouraged to nest.  

These include mallards, moorhens, Canada geese, kestrels, wood pigeons, coots and the occasional heron, plus the latest additions - ring-necked parakeets.

 The park has a variety of trees and shrubs, including dawn redwood, silver birch, laburnums and flowering crabs, as well as a number of unusual specimens which have reached maturity, including hornbeams, alders, poplars, Norway maple and Indian bean.

 The park is mainly used for children’s recreation, dog walking, personal fitness including organised health walking, Saturday and Sunday league football and for educational purposes, by school groups, church groups and scout/brownie groups.

 Fog Lane Park Bowling Club and the Friends of Fog Lane Park actively work with Manchester Leisure to improve and promote the site.”**

Location; Fog Lane Park

Pictures; Fog Lane Park, 2020, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento, Bandstand, Fog Lane Park,1962, m58046, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and Fog lane Park, 1959, from the OS Map of Manchester & Salford, 1959

*The Bandstand,  https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Bandstands

***More on Fog Lane Park, Didsbury Civic Society, https://www.didsburycivicsociety.org/fog-lane-park

Tracking my song through time ……. one to listen to ... today

For those who joined the Folk Music revival of the 1960s some came to it via singers like Bob Dylan, Peter Seeger and Joan Baez.

And once drawn in we soon delved deep into English traditional music, but for me it had begun with those Americans.

And that struck a chord when I saw the wireless programme on Plaisir d'amour in the Radio 4 series In Time to the Music.*

“In Time to the Music is the story of a piece of music, song, an air or melody travelling through time as a folk tune, a theatre melody, a hymn, a composition, a symphony - reinterpreted across years, centuries or millennia through revival, musical revolution, social fashions or archaeological discovery. 

We examine why certain tunes have managed to reach out over time, across genres, class, race and continents, how some are reimagined by oppressors even though they were written by its oppressed, how melodies from earlier periods are borrowed by subsequent composers, and how these illusive musical engravings change genre - from hymn to reggae, from court song to rock and roll - all with the passage of time.

The second episode explores the journey of Plaisir d'amour, starting out as a love song for Marie Antoinette to sing, through various revivals to its reworking as a 1961 hit for Elvis Presley. The programme also examines other music that has travelled through time.Featuring musicologists Laura Tunbridge, Professor Richard Dumbrill, Julia Doe, jazz pianist and educator Gareth Williams and singer Ian Shaw.Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon

Assistant Producer: Saul Sarne Producer: Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4”.

*Plaisir d'amour, In Time to the Music, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hp31

Summer days in south Manchester No 6 late morning on Chorlton Green in 1912

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 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.

Now number 5 looks small and in 1911 it consisted of just three rooms. Fine for Mrs Green who was a widow and lived alone but two decades earlier it had been the home of the plumber James Moloy his wife and four children.

Today the house is bigger but looking again at our picture back then some of number 7 appears to run behind it but just how the internal geography of the two works has yet to be revealed.
Having said that our picture has not yet given up all there is to learn.

Until late in the 19th century the pub was just the space either side of the entrance at number 9 and as late as the 1891 census there were families in numbers 11, and 13. And you might think that when the picture was taken this was still the case.

The fence extends along the rest of the row and separates these properties from the pub. But by 1901 all three were described as the Horse and Jockey which may have happened soon after the death of Miss Wilton who had lived at number 13 and died in 1896.

I would still like to know who owned the horse and cart in front of the Camel delivery vehicle, and whether the woman pushing the pram was the child’s mother or one of the many servants who were employed here in the years before the Great War.

Location; Chorlton Green, 

Picture; from the Lloyd collection, undated

Thursday’s people ……… Manchester in January

Mid-day in and around Central Ref.

Man and window, 2023

Thursday, January  29th.

Location; Manchester

Man taking a picture of a man taking a picture, 2023

Pictures; Thursday’s People, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A Railwayman’s View ...… 40 years of railway history .... the unique collection

I am looking at a collection of one man’s photographs, made over four decades chronicling the remarkable variety of steam, diesel and electric locomotives that operated out of Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station.*

They are the work of Ronnie Gee, who began his railway career in Longsight in 1943, but quickly moved over to working in a variety of signal boxes across south Manchester.

And because of the unique position high up in a signal box and armed with his camera he took thousands of pictures of the passing traffic, many of which are stunning “action” shots.

When he died in 2016 his collection was bequeathed to Manchester-based enthusiast and author, Eddie Johnson. 

Working with Ronnie's negatives and transparencies, Eddie and fellow Manchester Locomotive Society member, Ian Simpson, have produced a magnificent album of Ronnie's Images..

The book, simply entitled A RAILWAYMAN's VIEW is a wonderful collection of some of the 2500 black & white negatives and colour slides which Ronnie took over those three decades.**

As well as a stunning set of pictures from the steam era, there are plenty of diesel and electric locomotives, along with many that record the changes that took place, including the electrification of the line from Manchester to Wilmslow that took place in the 1960s.

The majority of photos date from the steam era and are in black & white, but a selection of colour images from the 1960s and 1970s are also included.

You can get the book direct from Eddie Johnson, price £15.95 plus £2.95 postage.

Cheque or cash only.  Available direct from E. M Johnson, 10 Tirza Avenue, Burnage, Manchester, M19 2JY,  email; tirza10@btinternet.com

*London Road Railway Station.

** A RAILWAYMAN's VIEW: The Photographs of Ronnie Gee, 2020, by: E. M. Johnson & I. Simpson, ,  ISBN: 9781527272798

Bandstands ............... nu 3...... North Lodge Park Darlington

Now this bandstand is one I like. 

It is in North Park Lodge in Darlington, has its own facebook page and last year was damaged by a group of mindless vandals. *

Happily, bandstands are making a comeback, although it was a close-run thing for many.

Anyone old enough to remember municipal bandstands in their heyday will have watched their slow decline.

It was a combination of things from that war time push to recycle old iron which robbed the stands of their ornate pillars and roof, to successive budget cuts and finally that simple fact that they fell out of fashion.

So, when I was growing up our band stand which had long ago had become just a brick and stand was just somewhere that on rainy days you played.

No one sat in deck chairs enjoying a selection of music as the sun was reflected on the shiny brass instruments and park authorities looked upon them as old unfashionable blots on the landscape.

According to one new book on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient.  The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples. **

The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.

All of which leaves me to thank Yvonne Richardson who allowed me to share this one of her bandstands.

Location; North Lodge Park Darlington

Picture; the bandstand, North Lodge Park Darlington, from the collection of Yvonne Richardson

 *North Lodge Park bandstand in Darlington vandalised, The Northern Echo, September 12 2018 https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/16836344.north-lodge-park-bandstand-in-darlington-vandalised/

**A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56

MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY …….In Queen’s Park, Harpurhey, Manchester …. another Tony Goulding story

 While researching my recent story on the Manchester Blitz victim, Thomas Horridge I had occasion to walk through Queen’s Park in Harpurhey, Manchester. 

I noticed this building and as it featured a prominent clock, I considered it might provide an addition to my “clock” series. 

My first thought was that it was a manor house which was a relic from the days before the park was opened to the public such as the one in Wythenshawe Park and John Rylands home which stood in Longford Park in Stretford. Closer inspection revealed that it was actually a former Museum and Art Gallery for the City of Manchester; clearly indicated by the lettering : - above this impressive doorway.

Investigations into this location’s past revealed several interesting historical connections.  

The current building dates from 1884 but prior to that there was a smaller hall on the site, Hendham Hall, built circa 1800 belonging to the Houghton family who owned large tracts of land around central Lancashire. 

 However, of particular interest is the identity of the resident of the hall when, following the raising of a public subscription, it was purchased at a cost of £7,250 (1) together with the surrounding land by the nascent Manchester Corporation to form Queens Park one of three public parks (2) opened on the same day 22nd August 1846. 

This final resident was none other than Mr. Jonathan Andrew Esq. who as a deputy constable of Manchester was present at the Peterloo Massacre and later gave an extremely biased report to the Home Office inquiry into the incident.

In his supposition he unbelievably stated “I never saw any person cut with a Sabre during this time.” 

 The original Hendham Hall was demolished circa 1880 and 4 years later the present building was opened in the afternoon of Saturday 5th July 1884 by Mr. A. J. Mundella M.P. (3)  

It was purpose-built as an Art Gallery and Museum to designs by Mr. John Allison the City Surveyor for Manchester. The ground floor was to be for museum exhibits whilst the upper floor, reached by a grand staircase, was illuminated by sky-lights for the display of the gallery’s collection of paintings. 

Hendham Hall

A tea-room and refreshment room were provided in the basement. It is no longer used for exhibitions but is still used by Manchester Art Gallery for storage and restoration work.

John Allison was born in Pathhead, Nr. Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland on the 26th February 1838. 

After training as an architect and surveyor in Edinburgh he began working in various civil engineering offices initially in Scotland before moving to Sunderland in North-East England. 

It was in this area where he first became a town surveyor when he was appointed to that post in Jarrow-on-Tyne in 1867.

Rt. Hon. A.J. Mundella M.P

He later moved to take up the same job in the larger city of Bradford, West Yorkshire until, in February, 1879 he took on the rôle in the still larger city of Manchester. 

Interior of the gallery Grand Staircase

Mr. Allison was twice married, first to Jane Boyd in Sunderland, Co. Durham during the December quarter of 1867 and then following her death, aged just 35 years, on the 29th September 1880 remarrying Catherine Daggs, 16 years his junior, on the 10th November 1886 at Ivington, Nr. Leominster, Herefordshire. 

His home on moving to Manchester was at 20. Woodlands Road, Cheetham Hill but he later moved by the time of the 1891 census to “Rosslyn”, 102, Wilbraham Road, (4) 

Chorlton-cum-Hardy, at which address he died just short of his 56th birthday on the 13th February 1894. 

Upper Floor showing sky-lights

He was buried in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery on the 16th February in grave G 435 of the Church of England section. 

He was survived by his second wife and five children. Three of these children were born to his first wife. James Young, born in South Shields, Co. Durham in the March quarter of 1869, he was followed by two daughters Agnes Ida, born in Jarrow-on-Tyne in the September quarter of 1870 and, after the move to Bradford, in the March quarter of 1879, Jeanie. 

Rosslyn

John Allison’s second wife was the mother of the two youngest children, both born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Oswald Roy who was born on the 6th December 1887 and John William, born on the 3rd January 1889.

Rosslyn

Following the death of their husband and father the Allison family moved from their home on Wilbraham Road; in the 1901 census the widow and the two youngest children were living at 29, Egerton Road, Withington, Manchester. 

By the date of the next census, they had relocated to Stretford at 471, Stretford Road, Old Trafford where they had been joined by Jeanie. The various stories of these Allison siblings may feature in a further piece.

Once again I must acknowledge the use I have made of the excellent database "Architects of Greater Manchester 1800-1940" and as always the Newspaper Archive and other records from Find My Past.

Pictures: - Portrait of Rt. Hon. A.J. Mundella M.P. By Unknown author - Mundella family archive, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115580055 Hendham Hall m58958 W. Morton, Interior of the gallery Grand Staircase m58968 unknown artist 1978 and Upper Floor showing sky-lights m58964 L.H. Price 1968. Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information, Manchester City Council http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Other pictures of the gallery’s exterior and “Rosslyn” from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: -

1)Equal to in the region of £700,000 today.

2)The other two were Phillps Park in nearby Bradford, Manchester and Peel Park in Salford.

3)The Right Honourable Anthony John Mundella was at this time the Liberal Member of Parliament for Sheffield and serving as a minister of Education in the cabinet of William Gladstone.

4)The numbering of Wilbraham Road was altered sometime in the 1920S to accommodate additional houses thus 102 is the present-day 536.

Bandstands ............... nu 2 back in Victoria Park in Swinton

Now I grew up with bandstands.

Almost any park worthy of the title public park had one.

But sadly by the time I was allowed to go off and play on my own all of the bandstands I can remember had become sorry looking things.

The ornate iron pillars had long gone, and no one came to listen to the bands who long ago had packed up their instruments and moved on.

So in celebration of all that was and has returned, here is the promised series on bandstands.

It started with a photograph from Antony and continues with a painting by Peter of the one in Victoria Park.*

It was built around 1897 when the park was laid out it embodies all that civic pride which said there was more to life than work, mean streets, and dark horizons.

According to one new book on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient.  The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples.**

The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.

Location; Swinton

Painting; the bandstand in Victoria Park, Swinton, © 2016 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*Antony Mills gave me permission to use his photograph earlier in the month

**A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56

At the Golden Egg with memories of a time before now

Now, if you are of a certain age, the Golden Egg, along with Wimpey, Berni Inns and the Little Chef are what formed a meal out.

The menu, 1967/8

And for those who wanted something even quicker, there were the Lyons Tea Rooms.

So for all those who remember these culinary delights and all those who don’t, here is a piece of pure indulgence.

It comes from Andy Robertson who commented, “Do you remember Golden Egg restaurants of the 1960s?

I was having a bit of a clear-out and found this which I must have ‘acquired’ about 1967/8. 

The exotic on offer at 5/-, 1967/8

I can't imagine how I got it, and it is one of the naughtier moments in my history. 

It is made of a sort of hardboard and almost two foot across...took a lot of smuggling out!”

And not only is it a bit of nostalgia for our collective youth but a real insight in to what was regarded as the best to eat.

I had quite forgotten Alaskan Delight “Ice Cream Topped With Hot Chocolate Sauce or Maple Syrup”, Snowball “Meringue With Ice Cream and Topped With Fresh Cream”.  Or that the Pasta dishes on offer consisted of “Macaroni au Gratin or Ravioli au Gratin”

The Golden Grill ...... an imitator, Woolwich, 1979

And the food ranged in price from 8 shillings and 9 pence for Sirloin Steak down to 3/6 for Egg and Bacon, Cheddar Cheese and Biscuits at 1/6, with Bread and Butter at just 9d.

The restaurants will I guess have been franchised and like Wimpy were quickly copied.

I remember the Golden Grill in Woolwich along with the Eltham Grill and a vast collection of similar outlets in Manchester City Centre.

There will be those who disparage the  chain and their imitators but back then they offered good quality food at a decent price, and that did for me.

What I didn’t know was that when they began in the early 1960s each one was very different, with some having an Italian theme, others Spanish and some even Hollywood.

Added to which the earliest used handmade ceramics and modern materials such as coloured plastics and fibre-glass.*


Only later did they take on the same corporate image by which time a little of the idiosyncratic style had gone, like the eight foot high head of a chicken in the Edgware Road 'Golden Egg'.

Of course a few years later I discovered the Ceylon Tea Centre, and The Plaza and a whole range of eating places but those are stories for another time.


Location, the 1960s.







Pictures; Golden Egg Menu, circa 1967/8 from the collection of Andy Robertson and the Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Designing Britain 1945-1975 Matthew Partington, https://vads.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/goldenegg.html

Bandstands ........... Nu 1 Victoria Park Swinton, 1897

Now anyone old enough to remember municipal bandstands in their hey day will have watched their slow decline.

It was a combination of things from that war time push to recycle old iron which robbed the stands of their ornate pillars and roof, to successive budget cuts and finally that simple fact that they fell out of fashion.

So when I was growing up our band stand which had long ago had become just a brick stand was just somewhere that on rainy days you played.

No one sat in deck chairs enjoying a selection of music as the sun was reflected on the shiny brass instruments and park authorities looked upon them as old unfashionable blots on the landscape.

But not so Victoria Park.  Here as Antony’s photograph reveals is a fine example of what many of us will remember.

Built around 1897 when the park was laid out it embodies all that civic pride which said there was more to life than work, mean streets, and dark horizons.

According to one new book on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient.  The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples.*

The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural

Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.

All of which leaves me to thank Anthony for the picture and renew my acquaintance with Victoria Park which was made up of the grounds of Swinton Old Hall and opened for business in 1897.

And of course will be the start of a new series on Bandstands.

Location; Swinton

Picture; the bandstand Victoria Park, 2016, from the collection of Antony Mills.

*A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56

Small people …… tall buildings …….

 This is not a winge or even a rant about the rise and rise of those tall buildings which climb from the ground to touch the sky in ever increasing numbers.

Looking for the person, 2023

After all it would be unhistorical to pitch a story about the development of these buildings which in a short two decades have transformed Manchester and Salford’s skyline without recognising what went before.

Greengate, 2022

The early 19th century saw the construction of large numbers of textile mills along with metal, dye, and engineering works all of which had their own impressive chimneys which belched out smoke.

They were visible from the surrounding countryside, leaving a layer of sooty blackness on buildings and even played their part in the evolution of the black and yellow ladybird.

These “industrial blotches” were accompanied by rows of mean terraced houses, some of which were better built than others but together with the industrial properties advanced across what had been green fields, turning most of our rivers and streams into conduits running with all manner of pollution. 

And this new build contributed to the wiping away of some of the elegant houses built in the 18th century as well as their Tudor and Jacobean neighbours.

So, we should always be careful about calling down piles of criticism on the trend for ever more tall properties which dominate the twin cities.

But and there is always a but, even given the commercial argument about building high, and the what I assume is an economic benefit to the city’s economy I wonder about the pursuit of climbing ever skywards.

Deansgate shapes, 2023

And it is this.  

When the building is so tall that it makes people insignificant in its shadow I wonder if we have got it right.

Old architecture recognised that buildings should not overwhelm the people who lived inside and beside them.  Even the Medieval Cathedrals with their tall spires stretching heavenly and their great glass windows were still on a human dimension.

And here someone will throw in that red herring that in the past technology couldn’t deliver the means to giant buildings, to which the riposte as ever is simply that “just because we can do something doesn’t always mean we have to”.

So once looking across to Knott Mill and beyond, the tallest building at Knott Mill was the old Congregational Chapel which snuggles up to the railway viaduct, a few yards opposite the railway station. It was built in 1858 and its slender tower rose majestically into the sky.

Knott Mill, 2023

By 2019 it was fast being eclipsed by new build and equally slender cranes.

Of course it is an observation as redundant as that which might have been made in 1810 as the character of 18th century Manchester and Salford was fast disappearing in the rush to all things industrial.

Still, it does allow me to show off some recent and a few past pictures of Manchester.

And all but one were taken down at Knott Mill using the advantage of height confered by the Deansgate Castlefield tram stop.

It is a story that won't go away and one which will give the interested and the social historian hours of research as they match what was with what is and speculate on what will be.

For now I will just thank Andy Robertson for his vast collection of images which he tirelessly adds to as he records how the twin cities are changing under the impact of all that new build.

Knott Mill, 2019

Location; Manchester and Salford

Pictures; Deansgate and Knott Mill, 2023, Looking into Greengate, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 2019 courtesy of Andy Robertson

The corner shop ..... Manchester ....... 1969

It is a scene which will be captured in many memories.

I don’t actually know where this was, but it comes in a collection which was taken in the late 1960s around Ancoats and across behind Plymouth Grove.

In time I will go looking for the exact location, using the streets with name plates as clues.

But I suspect it will have gone.

Leaving just the memory of the corner shop, the adverts on the walls, and a reminder of how we lived.


Location, Manchester

Picture; corner shop, Manchester, 1969, from the collection of Neil Simpson

One hundred uses for a trolley pole …… nu 1. ……. the poster

The poster advertised a meeting at the Friends Meeting House on January 25th, and judging by the attempts to destroy it, somebody didn’t want to know  “Could Hitler Have Been Stopped?”

And of course this is the lead up to Holocaust Memorial Day which is why I suppose the small political group decided the question needed to be asked this month.

I have no idea how well attended the meeting was, but I missed it by a day.

Location; St Peter’s Square, Manchester

Picture; One hundred uses for a trolley pole …… nu 1. ……. the poster, from collection of Andrew Simpson

So …. where in Chorlton-cum-Hardy was Victor Stapleton Ashby in 1921? ……..

Now as questions go this is not as daft as it reads, nor is it a candidate for The Twilight Zone.*

Barlow Moor Road, circa 1920s

Victor Stapleton Ashby made motor cars and briefly from 1921 till later in the decade he made them on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

Just where is still unclear but made them he did, and such was my surprise that we were the automobile centre of south Manchester that a few days ago I wrote about Mr. Ashby, his father and the Ashby motor cars.**

To be accurate they were “a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924”.***

The family were based in Towcester in Northamptonshire and look to have made the transition from traditional coach building in to cycle and motor engineers by the beginning of the last century.

In 1901 they patented an experimental motor car, applied for an international patent, and went into a partnership with Short Brothers the aircraft manufacturers in 1919, employed six Ashby staff members, and the car was known as the Short-Ashby in 1921.

But owing to poor sales Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 and the Ashby’s then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Barlow Moor Road, date unknown

And here comes the mystery because Victor’s father and mother remain in Towcester, but he does not show up on the 1921 census, so it is reasonable to suppose he moved with the business.

That said I can find no reference to him or his wife and daughter.  They married in 1915, and by the following year he was serving in the London Motor Boat Section as a “motor engineer” until he was demobbed in 1919.

Twenty years later they are living back in Towcester but so far for those missing few years in the early 1920s there is nothing.

All of which means it will be one of those old fashioned searches involving the street directories and electoral rolls for the period which are on microfilm in the Central Ref in town and the slow laborious hunt for a name and an address.

Looking for Victor

In the meantime someone might have an idea where they lived in Chorlton.

We shall see.

Location; somewhere in Chorlton

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road circa 1920s from the collection of Allan Brown and Barlow Moor Road, date unknown, from the Lloyd Collection

* The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)

**When Chorlton made cars ………..https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/when-chorlton-made-cars.html

*** ***Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

Tomorrow .......Marking the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

Tomorrow we remember those the Nazis murdered.

News from Vad Vashem.*

 "During the Holocaust, the Nazis endeavored to obliterate the identity of every Jewish man, woman, and child. 

Since the 1950s, Yad Vashem has worked tirelessly to gather the names of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. "The Book of Names of Holocaust Victims" memorializes each of the 4,800,000 individuals whose names are commemorated in Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names.** 

Every name, birth date, hometown and place of death is clearly printed on meter-high pages and illuminated by a gentle strip of light that lies between each page. 

The monumental size of the book attests to the collective, immeasurable loss to the entire Jewish people, and to humanity. The blank pages of the book's final volume, symbolize the names still to be redeemed, recorded and memorialized, in perpetuity, by Yad Vashem.

Yad Vashem will be installing The Book of Names at the United Nations Headquarters for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. ***

The opening event will be broadcast live on Thursday, 26 January at 1:30 PM EST via Yad Vashem's Facebook Page and via UNTV.  The Book of Names will be on display in New York through 17 February 2023 and is open to the public for viewing. The Book will then be brought to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, where it will be on permanent display beginning April 2023.

Pictures; courtesy of Vad Vashem 

*Vad Vashem, https://www.yadvashem.org/about.html

** "The Book of Names of Holocaust Victims", https://www.yadvashem.org/press-release/19-january-2023-10-35.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=book-of-names&utm_content=live-stream

 ***Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names https://yvng.yadvashem.org/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=book-of-names&utm_content=live-stream

A little bit of Cambridge returns to Manchester after 50 years in Milan

Now, in a country which is known for style the classic Ronson Varaflame held its own against all that Italian design could throw at it.

It was introduced in 1957, and was one of the world’s first gas lighters, which was refilled by those distinctive blue torpedo tubes, which when empty ended up as a prop on my model railway.

I remember the lighter well, mainly because it looked so modern in a house still dominated by clunky heavy unfashionable objects from the late 1940s.

And today, holding one in my hand, it combines a robust solid body with that pioneering aerodynamic shape, and it knocked the socks off everything else  that was around at the time.

Mother had one, which she cherished, but I rather think it has long been lost.

All of which made the discovery of Simone’s Varaflame a real find.

It was bought sometime in the early 1960s, in Cambridge, and travelled to Italy a decade later where it  busied itself doing the business for sixty years, and has now made its way to Manchester.

Sadly, the Kodak Instamatic, 304, has not be joined it.  

It first appeared in 1965 and was one of the more sophisticated instamatics, which along with others in the Kodak range introduced a generation to low-cost photography, and in turn had many imitators.

But as fun as it still looks, it is old smelly photography, relying on film, chemicals, and a dark room to recreate its magic.

And we have embraced the digital alternative.  So if it made its way to Manchester, it would just sit in a corner of the study, gathering dust, but never likely to be put on the market for sale

Such are the relics of family history.

It was also bought in Cambridge in the 1960s, left with the family for Italy, but will stay in that country.

Location; Cambridge, Varese, Manchester

Pictures, Ronson Varaflame, 1957, and the Kodak Instamatic, 304, 1965, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson