One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 143 …….. poster corner

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. *

Poster Corner, 2023

Now I wonder what Joe and Mary Ann would have made of poster corner which is the set of railings directly opposite their house.

The railings make up the south east corner of the Rec and have become the go to site for heaps of different posters.

That said I don’t remember the spot being used much before the turn of this century, and even then the posters tended to be appeals for missing pets, and the announcement of the return of the travelling circus.

Which means Joe and Mary Ann would not have had an opinion.

But then nor do I, particularly as the organization which has made this corner its own is Chorlton Arts Festival, and what a good thing that is.

At which point I could go into detail on this annual Chorlton Arts event, but then I regularly write about it so I shall just leave the link sitting here.**

Poster Corner, 2021

And it would be a tad hypercritical of me to voice much opposition given that for a brief few years I gave permission for a local builder to fasten his sign on one of our walls.

It directed the interested to their workshop which was directly behind us and had once been the office and yard of Joe Scott who was also a builder and was responsible for many of the properties off Beech Road. 

His successor were known as Fairbarts and over the course of the 1980s did a lot of work for us, including restoring a fire place picture rails and an old cast iron bath and lavatory with its wooden cistern which we had sourced from a shop in north Manchester.

Their sign was quite modest and lasted only until they moved on, and was nothing like those that can still be seen on gable ends advertising all sorts of products, two of which adorn buildings on Beech Road.

A different poster, 1986

And here I have to confess that for a few years the side of our hose advertised a huge Labour Party poster which I suspect Mr. Mrs. Scott would not have approved of.

Leaving me just to look through my collection of images of poster corner and reflect on a form of advertising and promotion which stretches back into history, and includes political appeals for votes found on the walls of Pompeii and more recent ghost signs which have long outlasted the products and the businesses they advertised.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; poster corner, 2023 & 2021 and the wall of Joe and Mary’s house 1986, from  the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Chorlton Wholefoods, 2015, from the collection of Peter Topping

Beech Road, 2015

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

**Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Arts%20Festival