Looking down Manchester Road in 1938

If you look closely you can just about recognise this as the corner of Manchester and Wilbraham Road.

The post card was sent in 1938 so I guess the photograph dated from about then.

Stand at this spot today and there is just a view down to the car park  Rather think I know which I prefer.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

In Blackheath in the summer of 1977

Now there is a story here about the history of the postal service.

But that is for another day.  For now I shall ponder on what Tranquil Vale in Blackheath looked like in the summer of 1977.

Just a decade before I had whiled away many happy hours in the bookshop opposite the Crown, and a bit before that as a very junior member of the Charlton Park Rugby Club had spent my fair share of money in that pub on a Saturday after the game.

Not that my sporting career was either very long or distinguished.  It had started when a PE teacher at Samuel Pepys suggested that some of us might like to progress from school rugby to club rugby.

I think I lasted half a season having spent most of the games pummeled by the opposition which was the lot of a 15 year old turning out against men in their 40s.

And all of which is a diversion from our picture, which  is not so different from today.

Of course in the intervening thirty seven years, the House of Tranquility and Two Steps have gone, but the pub is still there, although I do have to confess that I was a tad disappointed when we visited the Crown a year or so ago.

It had gone the way of so many and become open plan and had lost something of the intimacy I remember when you could wander off into small rooms and hide from the curious.

Nor to my mind does the outside seating do much for me.

But then it is easy to judge a place from the high ground of nostalgia, so I shall shut up and ponder on the story of Blackheath’s postal history which with the help of my friend Jean I shall return to later.

Picture; from the collection of Jean Gammons

Two south east Londoners out in Paris ......... 1980

Now, as holidays go it was an impulsive and short one.

I was in Manchester, our Elizabeth still in Well Hall and the summer in both cities was dragging, and so on the spur of the moment we decided to head off to Paris.

It was the first time I had been out of the country as a grown up and if you had to go anywhere abroad the City of Light seemed a good choice, after all from Eltham it took us less than a day.

That said years later when I flew from Manchester; we were there in an hour.

But of express trains, ferries and suburban French rail shuttles are adventures made of.

And arriving at the Gard du Nord was magic, as was the trip to Montmartre and the modest hotel.

We were there in high summer when Parisians who can, escape the city and its stifling heat, leaving those wide boulevards and poky side streets to an avalanche of tourists.

Some of my friends maintain you must always have a plan when visiting a new city, which involves a bit of research, one of those open top buses and a list of things to do and see.

These days that is what we do, but back then through a mixture of arrogance and laziness I didn’t, preferring an aimless wander which at times got us hot and bothered.

But on occasion it did lead to surprises like the Pompidou Arts Centre, and Sacré-Cœur that tall church which is a popular landmark.

If there is a defence of the aimless wander it is that you soak up the atmosphere of a foreign city, which is miles away from Eltham or the streets of Peckham where we spent our earliest years.

And if that sounds a little pretentious, well I guess it is.  But when all you have known about Paris, is what you picked up in school or from the telly, walking the city is a revelation.

I can’t now remember where we encountered the animated discussion between the two friends and certainly have no idea what was being said, but the older of the two had had enough and stared off into the distance lost in her own thoughts.

What did strike me on that hot August day was just how many people were just sitting watching the city pass by.

Many were on their own, and seemed contents to enjoy the moment in what the Italians call “the sweetness of doing nothing”.

For a while we joined them, taking it all in before blundering off another adventure to somewhere unplanned.

Location; Paris

Pictures; Paris, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Cross Road waits with mounting expectation

The paraphernalia of road works arrived this morning and all the street waits to see what will happen.

Brought to you by that series “A Week in the History of Beech Road”.*

And yes, the road signs were delivered to Cross Road, which is next to Beech Road, and who knows just where the pavement will be dug up.

Leaving me just to add for those wanting to know some history. 

Cross Road dates from the 1870s, was known as Cross Street and Cross Lane which is one in the eye for all those “there are no streets in Chorlton”.

Location; Cross Road

Picture; Waiting in expectation, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*A week in the history of Beech Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20week%20in%20the%20history%20of%20Beech%20Road

A canal picture ….. and a controversy ......

 Now little did I know when I stumbled into New Islington I would contribute to a debate.

Canal shapes ... old and new, 2023

Its that new development between the Ashton and Rochdale Canals bounded by Great Ancoats Street. 

Historically it has always been New Islington and appears as such on Johnson’s map of 1819, but that said the name did rather fall out of use in favour of the Cardroom Estate which was a Municipal development of social housing built in the 1970s.

18th century house, 21st century tower, 2023

By the 2000s the area did seem to be in need of “something” given that the estate had slowly lost its pubs, shops, and eventually the local primary school.

The bigger picture involved those bold plans to regenerate east Manchester as first the colliery and then a swathe of factories, iron works and chemical plants closed.  

Along the way the name Eastlands was coined, and we got a stadium fit for the Commonwealth Games with other sporting venues coming up behind.

To this was added the decision to regenerate New Islington which was a partnership between the City Council and the developer, Urban Splash.

The Guardian carried three article in quick succession about the plans along with a heap of silly comparisons with that other place in London which has Islington in its name.*

One of the more well-balanced articles, came from the Manchester Evening News in 2019. 

It  explored the concerns of the Cardroom residents when the Council and Urban Splash announced the regeneration plans, reported on the consultation process and focused on the opinions of those residents who felt let down as well as those who thought it had worked.**

A window to watch, 2023

I have to admit back in the early 2000s I gave it little attention, and only got round to my first visit in November of 2022.

Since then, I have taken the tram from Chorlton to New Islington on several occasions.  

Each time exploring a different aspect of the architecture, the history and just the feel of the place, following up the visits with blog stories.

But there are those that point out that all this newness has come at a cost, particularly for some of the residents of the Cardroom Estate who were apprehensive about what might have been an invasion and take over of a “metropolitan” way of life.

One observer has talked about residents being driven away. 

At which point I have to say I don’t know. 

The water picture, 2023

Offers were made of houses in the same streets for those that wanted them, which in turn has prompted me to go looking for more information. The first is Cardroom Voices, containing the photographs of Len Grant and the stories and opinions of twelve of the Cardroom residents.***

After which I shall trawl the Manchester Evening News, and the comments of the city Council and Urban Splash, along with more walks, more photographs and more stories about the new New Islington.

Relics of The Soho Iron Works, 2023

Location; New Islington

Pictures; New Islington, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Setees and a canal, 2023

*New Islington to rise among satanic mills, Guardian February 1^st, 2002, Cardroom Voices Scheme targets vast area of urban decay, Guardian, March 29^th 2001, Manchester Unveils plans for a radically New Islington, the Guardian September 17^th, 2002

**Goodbye to the old council, Maya Black, February 9th, 2019, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/property/new-islington-urban-splash-regeneration-15520086

***Cardroom Voices, Len Grant https://indd.adobe.com/view/53bfe9ea-1076-4f6e-9c6b-9b48600cca58

Back with H T Burt's on Wilbraham Road with a nod to Stevenson's

I wonder how long it will be before Burt's the Gents Outfitters on Wilbraham Road fades from memory?

The shop will have opened for business not long after the stretch of houses between Keppel Road and Albany Road were converted into shops sometime around 1909.

At the same time Mr. Stevenson Ladies & Gentleman's Hairdresser moved off Barlow Moor Road and took charge of a shop just a few doors down.

Now I haven't come across a picture of Burt's but Mr Stevenson's won't be so different.

It is a shop I often write about so to today I want to concentrate on H T Burt's who dealt all things gentleman's outfitters while his wife had a stationary shop almost opposite.

Mr Burt's shop operated from the corner of Keppel and Warwick and was just part of Chorlton.

But according to a TV show specialising in making over businesses it was in need of a shake up which the programme did apparently brining it into the 21st century, but to a lot of peoples' surprise it closed suddenly.

All of which I have remarked on but my friend Ann who lives in France got me thinking about the place all over again with this label commenting that she had been "looking for something else, and found this! 

Must have cut it out of some clothing of my Dads. 

He used to shop there, think they went to school together, but we're certainly friends of long standing."

So there you have it, a little bit of Burt's has come back to Chorlton and for those who have no memory of of Stevenson's it traded almost into the 21st century and the premises has had a number of uses since.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; advert for J.R.Stevenson’s, 1908 from the Souvenir of the Grand Wesleyan Church Bazaar, 
1908, courtesy of Philip Lloyd and trade label, date unknown from the collection of Ann Love

Contrasts …….. walking Ancoats

Location Ancoats

Picture; Contrasts in Ancoats, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sorting Eltham's letters at Blackheath in 1830

A short series looking at the story behind the picture.

Back in the 1977 my friend Jean gave a  talk on the postal service in Eltham during the 19th century which she later turned into a set of articles published in the Eltham Society magazine.

“This is the building in Dartmouth Row, Blackheath which was the sorting office for Eltham and all the surrounding districts from the mid 1830s.

This was where the people of Blackheath would have bought their Penny Blacks in 1840 or a 'Twopenny Blue'- the world's first postage stamps in 1840”

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year.

All London post offices received official issues of the new stamps but other offices throughout the United Kingdom did not, continuing to accept postage payments in cash only for a period.

It was still a post office in 1977 but today is a private residence.


Picture; the sorting office on Dartmouth Row in 1977 and text from Jean Gammons, and The Penny Black fro Wikipedia Commons

Shopping the old fashioned way ……. a week in the history of Beech Road .... part 15

In the age of the supermarket and online shopping it's good to see a return of the old fashioned way of buying our fruits, veg and groceries.

Even more that Floral Affair beside the green should face the site of what had been Whittaker's Italian Grocery shop.

Location; Beech Road, Chorlton Green

Picture; Shopping the old fashioned way, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The not so different bits of where we live, part 4 ............. Blackheath

Now I am always intrigued at those more recent photographs of where we live.

So while pictures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are fascinating often everything is so different that it is almost looking at a different landscape.

But those from say the 1960s onwards are often almost the same but not quite, and with this in mind here over the next few days are some from the camera of Jean Gammons all taken in the late 1970s.

And that is all I shall say,

Picture; Blackheath, 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons

When Well Hall, Woolwich and Manchester collided........ stories from a book

Now I no longer think it odd that one of the most vivid descriptions of the Royal Artillery’s Barracks at Woolwich should be from letters sent by a young soldier to his wife in Manchester.

George Davison, 1916

Or that his will made in the March of 1918 should have been witnessed by a friend who lived on the site of Well Hall Odeon just minutes away from where I grew up on the Progress Estate.

What links all of these is that they were part of the research I did for a book on Manchester and the Great War which came out last year.*

It told the stories of the people who lived through the conflict, waved loved ones goodbye who were destined for battlefronts around the world, and then got on with the daily demands of earning a living, and bringing up a family against a backdrop of rising prices, and food shortages.

Yesterday I reflected on that “last will and testament" of George Davison who was that soldier and also of his wife Nellie who spent time with the Drinkall family who witnessed the will and who were fond of both George and Nellie.**

In his letter’s home George writes about the conditions in the barracks, the poor quality of the food and the bedding, and the antics of his fellow soldiers.

And more than once I have pondered on the links between me and the Davison’s.

Our house on Well Hall Road would in all probability have been known to them, and I regularly passed the barracks where he was stationed.

Added to which, before he was married he lived just a ten minute walk away from where I live in Chorlton which is a suburb of Manchester.

So while we may have been separated by almost a century I have a strong connection with a soldier from Manchester who lived briefly in Woolwich and Well Hall and became part of my book.

Location; Well Hall, Woolwich and Manchester

Picture; George Davison, 1916, from the collection of David Harrop

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18, 2017, the History Press, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/the-great-war-how-we-remember-it.html

** Mrs Nellie Davison at Well Hall .......... stories behind the book nu 27 making the connection, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/mrs-nellie-davison-at-well-hall-stories.html

The hotel …. the Red Cross hospital ….. and the home of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes of Wilbraham Road

Now every house has a story ….. the challenge is discovering what lies behind the front door.

Wycombe Hotel, date unknown

And that is what brought me to the Wycombe Hotel.

It is picture which has sat in the collection for nearly a decade, and it has always been a photograph I passed over.

There is no date, no location listed on the back, and no clue as to an owner, and so I always thought its story was lost.

But not so, because on a grey wet day with the rain coming down like stair rods, I thought I would have one last go.

The house looks vaguely familiar and if pushed I would say we were somewhere on Wilbraham Road, close to the old Conservative Club.

Wycombe House, 2016

A search of the trade and street directories revealed no Wycombe Hotel, but in the 1911 directory there was a Wycombe House which was indeed on Wilbraham Road beside the Con Club

It was the home of  Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, their four children and Mary Jane Williams, who was employed as a domestic servant.

Mr. Barnes described himself a “Merchant” and is listed in the same 1911 directory as the “Managing Directory of James Barnes Ltd.” 

He died in 1921, leaving an estate worth £52,253, which went to his four children.

But more interesting in a sense than the will, is that he died in Llandudno, that gentle Welsh seaside resort which was the last resting place for many elderly and comfortably well-off ex pats from across the border.

Now, I don’t yet know when he left Chorlton, but by 1917 the house had become an auxiliary Red Cross Hospital.

I had known about the two big hospitals in the Sunday Schools of the Methodist Church on Manchester Road, and the Baptist Church on Edge Lane but Wycombe had passed me by.

A gate post, 2016

But it was a common enough practice for families to offer up their homes for use by the Red Cross, and at the end of the war not all returned to residential use.

So perhaps sometime after 1918, the house became a hotel, and only much later reverted to domestic use.

All of which means I will have to go down to Central Ref and wander over the directories for the years after the Great War looking for a hotel.

That said one always must be careful, because while researching the family I came across the military records of a young man who I took to be one of the sons of Mr. Barnes and with mounting excitement I trawled the documents only to discover it was not he.

Such are the twisty, turny, paths of research.  Still I rather think we have some of Wycombe’s story, and intime thre will be more.

Location: Chorlton;

Pictures; Wycombe Hotel, date unknown from the Lloyd Collection, and Wycombe House, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Through a window ……. a week in the history of Beech Road .... part 15

It was one of those wet days on Beech Road and the inside of 97 seemed very inviting.*

I am old enough to remember when it was a fabric shop which was the go to place for zips, buttons, patterns, and heaps more.

Later it had a flirtation as a second hand shop, before settling down and embracing the bar culture.

And now it is the place for a brand new venture from the owner of the Lead Station which mixes "some high-end drinks and a nod to nostalgia".*

Location; Beech Road

Picture; Looking in to 97, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The smart new cocktail bar on Chorlton's Beech Road... with cordials, tinctures and Top Trumps, Ben Arnold, Manchester Evening News, March 3rd, 2023, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/smart-new-cocktail-bar-chorltons-2638251

A burial scandal ….. a walk of shame … and a heap of other stories

This week sees the publication of our latest book in the series nothing to do in chorlton, which tells the story of the old parish church and its graveyard by the green.

The newly arrived books, 2023

This is the twelfth book Peter and I have written together and for me it is the most important.

Like all our books it tells “the stories behind the doors”, concentrating less on the great and the good but exploring the lives of the “little people” who at best history has forgotten but mostly never even bothered to notice.

People like Mary Crowther who was the last woman in Chorlton to do penance in St Clement’s Church, Samuel and Sarah Nixon who ran a beer shop on Beech Road for half a century and the unknown mother and child whose bodies were found underneath a side aisle of the church.

The graveyard in 2009, in happier times

That said we do also acknowledge the important role of Thomas Walker who despite being an important Establishment figure in Manchester during the late 18th century campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade and was indicted for sedition for supporting the values of the French Revolution. 

He lived at Barlow Hall and was buried in the graveyard.  And for me what makes this collection of stories the most important to date is that it is linked to efforts to restore the parish graveyard, along with the Lych Gate which are in need of some tender care and attention.

Since the landscaping project of the 1980s bits of the site have become tired and it is time for a joint venture between the City Council and a “Friends” group to identify areas which need repair, and improvement and imaginative suggestions about how the gravestones could be better displayed and preserved.

So, while the book is about the church and those who were buried there it is also a way of increasing awareness of the history of this green space in the heart of Chorlton.

The Lych Gate and Grave Situations beyond, is book 4 in that popular series nothing to do in chorlton, costs £4.99 and is available from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk and Chorlton Book shop.

The graveyard in 2023 in less happy times

The book launch will be on April 10th at 1 pm in the Lloyd’s Hotel and we are planning a history walk later in the month which will be centred in the old parish church yard.

Location; Chorlton in April

Pictures; The newly arrived books, 2023, the graveyard in 2009, in happier times, and in 2023 in less happy times.

Just how do you serve up a drink on Kefalonia? ..... no. 2

A short occasional series featuring a picture and a memory.

It began as a competition to record as many different glasses at one restaurant as we could over the pace of three days.

We had arrived early, and so choose to have an aperitif in the bar, and both went for an apple spritz.

Location; Lorraine’s Magic Hill, Lourdas Beech, Kefalonia

Picture; glass jar, 2019, from the collection of Balzano


Lorraine’s Magic Hill

A tram and the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood

I suppose that old W.C. Fields line, “Never work with children or animals” could be adapted to include never write stories about trams because they have a habit of taking over.

I never realized just how those old bone shakers can still attract people.

The last ran in Manchester in 1949 and the last to clunk and sway its way into the township was even earlier.

But people like looking at them so here is another.

We are at the junction of Barlow Moor Road, High Lane and Sandy Lane sometime in the early 20th century.

A generation or so before and this would have been known as Lane End or by some as Brundrett’s Corner which was its popular name dating back to the grocers shop run by the Brundrett family.

I like these old unofficial names for places which spring from people’s experiences.  If you had taken the tram back down Barlow Moor Road it would have brought you up at Kemp’s Corner named after Harry Kemp who owned the chemists on the corner.

Well into the 1960s it was one of the recognized meeting places in Chorlton, all but forgotten now and superseded by its title of  Four Bank Corner or just the Four Banks, which means more I suspect than the official name of Chorlton Cross.

This picture has all that charm of early photography when people still posed in front of the camera.  But what attracted me to the picture, is the sign in the grounds of the church announcing the business of the PSA Brotherhood.

Now I had come across the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood back in the 1970s in Ashton Under Lyne.

They were what they said they were an organization designed to provide a pleasant afternoon with a Christian slant on a Sunday.  The first seem to have sprung up in the mid 1870s and their first national conference was in London in 1906.

Now this is another of those areas I want to dig deep into.  There was a political dimension  “The long standing relationship between political Liberalism and Nonconformity brought active Liberals into the movement. 

In the early twentieth century key Labour and Trade Union leaders became actively involved in the PSA/Brotherhood Movement. Labour MPs Arthur Henderson and Will Crooks, and the Liberal MP Theodore C. Taylor were all present at the founding of the National Association of Brotherhoods, PSAs etc in London in 1906. 

Keir Hardie, was also actively involved, he was a main speaker for a Brotherhood Crusade in Lille in 1910. Arthur Henderson MP was elected National President in 1914. The National Adult School Union’s ‘One and All’ journal reported 7 out 9 ‘adult school men’ who stood for parliament were successful in 1910.”*

And there appears to be a Temperance aspect so there is a lot to play for and find out.

I had not thought they had a presence in the south of the city but they were here.  Harry Kemp’s Chorlton Alamack for 1910 listed

“The P.S.A. (Men’s Meeting),  Macfayden Memorial Church.  Sundays, 3 p.m. William S Bradshaw, 4, Beechwood Avenue. & P.S.A. (Men’s  and Women Meeting), Wesleyan Mission Hall. Sundays, 3 p.m, Secy., E.H. Astle, 34 Reynard Road.”

And all this and a tram to.  Well worth the read.

* The Early Adult School and Brotherhood Movements in the West Midlands: Adult Education, Evangelism or Social Activism?, European Social Science History Conference, Glasgow, April 14 2012

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Just how do you serve up a drink on Kefalonia?………. no. 1

A short occasional series featuring a picture and a memory.

It began as a competition to record as many different glasses at one restaurant as we could over the pace of three days.

But today it was the jam jar which took pride of place.

Tina liked the jam jar and it reminded me of a similar jar, in a taverna at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.

It was a full forty-one years ago, and while I have long ago forgotten what we ate, I can remember the ice cold Retsina which was served up in the glass jug.

Location; Lorraine’s Magic Hill, Lourdas Beech, Kefalonia

Picture; glass jar, 2019, from the collection of Balzano

Stories of Solon .... that Greek lawgiver ... on the wireless

So, sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised when a wireless programme turns out to be far more interesting than you thought.

Solon the law giver,  from a Greek original c. 110 BC

And so it was with Solon the Lawgiver which was this weeks edition of in Our Time.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Solon, who was elected archon or chief magistrate of Athens in 594 BC: some see him as the father of Athenian democracy.

In the first years of the 6th century BC, the city state of Athens was in crisis. The lower orders of society were ravaged by debt, to the point where some were being forced into slavery. An oppressive law code mandated the death penalty for everything from murder to petty theft. There was a real danger that the city could fall into either tyranny or civil war.

Solon instituted a programme of reforms that transformed Athens’ political and legal systems, its society and economy, so that later generations referred to him as Solon the Lawgiver.

With Melissa Lane, class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University, Hans van Wees, Grote Professor of Ancient History at University College London, and William Allan, Professor of Greek and McConnell Laing Tutorial Fellow in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at University College, University of Oxford

Producer Luke Mulhall"

Picture; by Sailko of Solon,copy from a Greek original (c. 110 BC), from the Farnese Collection, now at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples. Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: Creative Commons, attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

*Solon the Lawgiver, In Our Time, Radio 4,  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k7wb

Discarded ……. a week in the history of Beech Road .... part 14

A plant is not just for Christmas

Locaton; Beech Road

Picture; A plant is not just for Christmas, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Stories of ghost buildings …………..

I am looking out of the window of a long-vanished building.

The room with a view, 2023

Today all that is left are two sides which run along a section of The Ashton Canal.

To my rear is the New Islington metro stop and beyond the window in the distance is Great Ancoats Street.

And until recently I had no idea of its existence until I started exploring and writing about  New Islington which is that area between the Ashton Canal to the south and the Rochdale Canal to the north.*

The Soho Iron Works, 1849

My building or at least the two walls were part of the Soho Iron Works which operated from this spot by at least 1810.  

This I know because according to one source in that year Peel, Williams & Co acquired the works, which they ran along side their Phoenix Foundry in Shudehill.  

“Pigot and Dean's New Directory of Manchester and Salford published in 1821 contains an entry for the firm, listing Peel and Williams as 'iron and brass founders, Phoenix Foundry, Shudehill; roller and spindle-makers, water-press and steam engine manufacturers, and gas-light erectors, Soho Foundry, Ancoats.' 

In 1839 Peel, Williams and Peel began manufacturing railway locomotives, which were trialled on the Liverpool - Manchester line. By 1861 a local directory described the company as 'Peel, Williams and Peel, steam engine makers, iron and brass founders, engineers, millwrights, boiler, gasometer and hydraulic press makers, Soho Iron Works and Forge, Pollard st, Great Ancoats st.' 

In the following year Peel, Williams and Peel was awarded a medal for their machines at the 1862 London Exhibition”.**

More ghost windows, 2023

The firm remained in business till May 1887 when the site was advertised for sale by auction, and in 1895 the building was occupied by the Union Alkali Company and described itself as a Chemical Works and were still there in 1928.

Intriguingly my Goad Fire Insurance map of 1928 references that part of the building along side the canal had been damaged in a fire in 1843, which followed on from an earlier fire in 1828 which had destroyed the older part of the foundry but spared the newer build.

Newspaper coverage of the 1828 fire included a letter which rebutted criticism of the conduct of the Norwich Union firemen who according to Thomas Bedford, Foreman of the millwrights “behaved themselves during the fire at Soho in a manner becoming their situation”.***

Just what they were accused of has yet to come to light.

But trawling the same paper there is one of those little bits of news which offers an insight into factory life and involved a court case where two apprentices were charged “with unwarrantable assault on a fellow -apprentice who having refused to fetch some water into the shop” was suspended in the air by a chain until he passed out and was rescued by workmen.**** 

"unwarrantable assault", 1828

I will go looking for the two accused who were John Broome and Jonathan Mills but I suspect history has long ago forgotten them if it ever bothered to notice them.

Still the romantic in me wonders if they too like me stared out of my window, which the historian in me concedes is pure tosh.

Location Pollard Street, New Islington

Pictures, relics of the Soho Works, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and map of the Soho Iron Works, 149 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1989, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the site in 2023, courtesy of Google Maps.

Soho Iron Works site, 2023

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/03/walking-new-islington-and-thinking.html

**Peel, Williams and Peel, Soho Iron Works, Science Museum Group Collection, https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap14659/peel-williams-peel

***Peel and William’s Fire, Manchester Guardian June 21st, 1828

****Thursday, Manchester Guardian July 5th, 1828

Of Waterloo sunsets, Peckham Rye and the Pleasuance at Well Hall

Now it is just one of those things that you miss where you grew up.

Coming home, 2013

It is such an obvious statement but is none the less true.

I left south east London in 1969 for Manchester unsure what was ahead of me but convinced that I would be back, but like most plans it never happened.

Manchester is where I ended up, got married bought a house and brought up four kids.

In my twenties I can’t say I missed London and I guess it wasn’t until quite recently, long after I qualified for a concessionary bus pass and reached an age to be rewarded with the winter fuel payment that I began to think of home.

Well Hall, 2011

And home really only begins when the ferry docks or the  train pulls across the river into Waterloo and then I know I am back.

Another 20 or so minutes later and after the train has taken that curve I have arrived home in Eltham.

But then because we moved around, the train could quite easily have taken me to Queens Road or New Cross and because for a long time our Elizabeth lived in Plumstead and Woolwich there was that other set of railway stations.

My kids always know which special song to play for me and ever since I first heard Waterloo Sunset it has been my tune, with a special meaning given that Kay and I would meet every Friday night under that clock.

Ten years earlier Waterloo Station would be one of the destinations along with London Bridge which would be the start of an adventure.

Woolwich, 2015

For with 2/6d pocket money and aged just ten there were lots of places you could go for a modest return fare and still have change for a variety of sweets.

Sometimes you struck gold and on other occasions you ended up in a dreary back street beside a canal with grim tall buildings all around you.

But that didn’t matter because the fun was in the expectation of where you might go and once there roaming across the city in search of anything that looked interesting.

And there were the bombsites which were still pretty much in evidence all around us.  Most of the time there wasn’t much to discover, but once we found a gas mask still in its box with the green paint and black rubber looking brand new.

Woolwich, circa 1940s

And then there was the old bombed church of St Mary’s which was a place where with a shared candle  a group of you could wander through the crypt anticipating all sorts of horrors and finding only a damp and smelly mattress.

Some adventures turned out not so well, like the time me, Jimmy O’Donnel and John Cox having walked from Lausanne Road to Greenwich, took the wrong turning by the entrance to the foot tunnel and instead of standing on the sand in front of the Naval College we turned left walked amongst the barges and sank up to our ankles in oily Thames mud.

To this day I remain ashamed that I blamed the other two when mother interrogated me on arriving home.

Worse than the interrogation was the bath that followed which seemed to take hours and involved much scrubbing to remove the dried mud from me and even longer to make my shoes half decent.

Today those trips are less perilous but no less fun and often involve a brief visit to an old haunt like the Pleasaunce at Well Hall which is only a few minute’s walk from our old house.

Cambden Church, 1904

Of course I am well aware that the places of my youth have changed and as in the case of Woolwich pretty dramatically but I don’t subscribe to that throw away judgement that places I knew are “now rubbish”, they are just different and no doubt there would be those catapulted into the 21st century from 1900 who would mourn the passing of the “smoke hole” at Woolwich and wish there were two lanes of traffic forcing their way down Powis Street.

I suppose for those of us who leave it is always a bit odd to be confronted with the disappearance of all our childhood memories.

That said I never tire of Waterloo Sunset or arriving south over the river.

Location; south of the river

Pictures from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Scott MacDonald and Elizabeth and Collin Fitzpatrick and Steve Bardrick, Camden Church Peckham Road, circa 1904, Albert Flint Photographer and Publisher, 68 Church Street, Camberwell in the series Camberwell, marked by Tuck and Sons, and reproduced courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

All you ever wanted to know about the history of Chorlton Park …….

Perhaps it is time for a history of Chorlton Park.

A magical place, 2019

After all, it has been a place to play, relax and meet up with friends for almost a century.

In 1933-34

There will be plenty who remember the paddling pool, and the pets’ corner, but few who now know that beside the paddling pool there was a large open air swimming bath, a band stand with a covered seating area, and that during the last world war the park had its own air raid shelters.

Added to that the historic records suggest there was a race course and an observatory, which fit nicely with stories of Brookfield House, which dates back into the 18th century, and was once home to the son of Francis Deakin who had been brutally murdered in a beer house on Manchester Road in 1847.

In 1854

And if you had strolled along Barlow Moor Road back in the 1840s, and looked out across what is now the park you might have been able to make out the ponds close to Brookfield House and perhaps even had conversations with the agricultural labourers working on the fields which had names like Rent Meadow, Second and Third Moorfields and which were a mix of arable and meadow land.

Brookfield House, circa 1900

Walk a little further along that road and you would have encountered the fine processional way that ran off from what was then called Barlow Moor Lane east towards Hough End Hall.

The path is still there although the full majesty of the hall is somewhat at present obscured by a modern office block.

Bits of the park’s story have appeared over the years in the blog*, and one very good account was published in 2017.**

And now Peter and I have decided that it is time to include this jewel of a place in our series of books entitled nothing to do in chorlton.

Each book is predicated on the idea of doing nothing in chorlton, and offers six sites where the reader can sit and uncover the stories of the surrounding area while doing nothing.***

Julie and the goat, circa 1970s

The first three have been a roaring success, and the fourth on our old parish church and graveyard by the village green will be published next month.  

The books are slim and small enough to fit in the back pocket or in a handbag and are designed to be carried with you on the walk and each costs £5.  They are available from Chorlton Bookshop or us at  www.pubbooks.co.uk.

All of which leads me back to Chorlton Park and an appeal for anyone with memories or pictures to get in touch with us at www.pubbooks.co.uk.

Location; Chorlton Park

Pictures; The park in 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1933 from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1933-34, and in 1854 from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Brookfield House circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, the goat and Julie in Chorlton Park circa early 1970s, from the collection of Julie Thomas

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

**The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, & Pester Topping, 2017

****nothing to do in chorlton, Book 1, Chorlton Green and the Ees, Book Two, Martledge Lost and Found, Book Three Down Beech Road Looking for Chorlton Row, and Book Four, to be published in April, The Lych Gate and Grave Situations Beyond