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

When the skyline had yet to be taken over

It is easy to forget that there was a time and a tome relatively recently when the city’s sky line had yet to be taken over by tall developments which reached for the sky.

And as Ian Robertson’s three pictures show that was just a decade and a bit ago.

In 2007 the debate was still raging about the Beetham Tower which had eclipsed the CIS Building as Manchester tallest structure.

So in 2007 and again in 2009 Ian wandered down to that end of Deansgate to record this new “thing”.

Since then, of course he has been back and back again recording the onward march of these tall buildings, which very quickly also came to dominate across the water in Salford and are now out there in Stockport.

All of which makes these images a little bit of history.

Location; on Deansgate, Manchester

Pictures; the Beetham Tower, 2007-09, from the collection of Ian Robertson

A chance find and the beginnings of a story on Wilbraham Road

Now this is a story that has yet to find an ending and in the telling will eventually reveal much about how and why Wilbraham Road follows the course it does.

The three proposed routes crossing close to Red Gates Farm

I have always taken this long road which stretches from Chorlton up to Fallowfield for granted.

After all it was cut in the late 1860s and so is pretty much one of the features of the area.

Our own historian Thomas Ellwood writing in 1885 confined himself to the observation that “it was formed some sixteen years ago by the late Lord Egerton, father of the present earl. It extends from Wilmlsow-road at Fallowfield to Edge-lane, along which a main sewer runs to within a short distance of the railway bridge at Chorlton station.  

From here it passes through the fields to Barlow Moor-lane, adjoin Lane-end, crossing High-lane, Cross-road and Beech-road, thence through various gardens, finally emptying itself into the Chorlton Brook at a point about 200 yards below the bridge which crosses the stream to Jackson’s Boat.”

So as far as Mr Ellwood was concerned the road was less interesting than the sewer which ran beside it.

I on the other hand have long been intrigued by why it was built and the benefits it might have brought to the township.

But other than clocking the date it was cut that was about it, until recently when going through the Egerton Papers in the Archives at Central Ref I came across a map showing the proposed route.

It is dated 1853 and actually shows three possible routes all to the west of the current line.

The description is less than helpful confining itself to just “plan of projected new road from Rusholme to Stretford” and there are no accompanying notes.  Now these may be elsewhere in the papers and so I will have to go off and look.

And until I find those notes I cannot be sure why three routes are shown.  All three are close together.

The first marked in blue would have crossed Martlege just below Red Gate Farm where the Library now stands and the other two coloured in brown and red just a little further to the west and two would have involved crossing Longford Brook.

Martledge, Renshaw;s Buildings now the the Royal Oak

Now why none of these routes was chosen is as yet unclear, there may have been issues with the land especially around the Isles** or it may it may have been because they ran close to Red Gate Farm and crossed Longford Brook.

All of which is one of those little bits of history yet to be uncovered.

That said the map is a wonderful source of information about the outer reaches of the township showing each of the properties and the fields, and natural features either side of the proposed routes.

So along with searching for more on the planned road I will be returning to our 1853 map.

Picture; detail from the plan of projected new road from Rusholme to Stretford, Egerton Papers, M24 /1/15 1853, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_history

*Egerton Papers, M24 /1/15

**Ellwood, Thomas, L, Roads and Footpaths, Chapter 6, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, December 12 1885

***this is the area abound Longford Road which was popularly known as the Isles and was dominated bt small lazy little water courses feed ponds and pits which had been dug to extrach clay and marl

It ain’t da Vinci …… travels through Ancoats and the canal they stole

An occasional series looking at the less well executed pieces of street art.

It ain't da Vinci, Radium Street, 2023

Well, that is how the story started but as so often happens it took a few twists and turns.

The art is relatively new, and was not there back in 2020, when I last wandered down Radium Street, which is how the story took its first turn, because originally this was German Street and sat along with Bengal Street and Poland Street running from Great Ancoats Street down Union Street and the Rochdale Canal. 

German Street, 1851

And the canal with the Ashton Canal which is a little further south assisted in the development of this area as an important textile manufacturing centre in the early decades of the 19th century.

Many of those cotton mills still exist but long ago became part of that gentrification revolution which saw them converted into residential apartments and smart offices and studios.

Not that I have anything against that development, but along the way, someone stole a bit of the Rochdale Canal.

To be strictly accurate it was a branch of the canal which ran off the main canal just a little east of Poland Street, and then by degree had another off shoot which ran west crossing Radium Street beside our piece of art.

The Bee Hive Mill, 2023

Looking at the picture on the wall it struck me that it stood beside a bridge, but on peering over the causal observer is rewarded with nothing more exciting than an over grown car park.

But back into the 19th century this was an important section of the canal and was boarded by a mix of textile mills, coal yards, the Phoenix Iron Works and the Behive Mill Cotton Mill

School Court, 2023

The coal yards and the Iron Works have long gone, but the Behive Mill which dates from 1824 is still there with its workmanship entrance on Jersey Street.

As is School Court which today is just an uninviting little dead end a little way down from that painting and the remnant of the branch canal.  

Apart from the name there is no other indication that this was the site of St Paul’s Church School which in the mid 19th century is shown on the maps as a substantial building.  

I have yet to find out anything about the building and it has gone by the 1890s, all of which will mean a trip to the archives to track its story.

I suspect if the students of the school had been invited to paint a wall they may well have improved on the 21st century spray can artist.

Well its an opinion.

Radium Street/ German Street, 2023

As for the canal it is less that it was stolen and just filled in when no one wanted it anymore.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; Radium Street, School Court, Behive Mill, Jersey Street, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  and extract from the Manchester Guardian, 1828, deatil of Adhead’s map of Manchester in 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Radium Street, 2023, courtesy of Google Maps

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

Bits of paintings no one wants .... Mr. Wrigley, beer sellar ..... and a stroll down Spear Street in 1851

Spear Street is one of those long thin streets which you either know intimately or stumble across by accident.

That bit of Spear Street in 2023

In my case it was almost by accident on one of those aimless strolls across the back streets of the city over 40 years ago.

And I keep going back.  

Too many it may seem very unremarkable, and not worth even the few minutes it takes to venture along it from Back Piccadilly Street up to Great Ancoats Street.

After all for most of its narrow length, even the buildings have turned their back on it, and the few which do open out on to the street are little more than shuttered entrances which long ago became the playground for graffiti artists with a spray can and little imagination.

Which brings me to my pictures of the wall almost opposite Faraday Street.

Back in 2016

This bit of Spear Street has long fascinated me not least because of the mystery of the moving street, which is Back Spear Street.*

On the 1849 and 51 maps it is directly opposite Faraday Street and contained seventeen properties along its length which ran off Spear Street and then took a right to run parallel with its name sake.

The street line is still there a century later, but now most of it has vanished under buildings and a tiny bit now comes out beside my wall with its few bits of paintings no one wants.

They were added sometime in 2017 and post date the image of a reclining naked woman which had been painted the year before.  Sadly the spray can brigade have obliterated her with  giant bubble writing in shades of green.

And that could pretty much be the end of the story but as if ever there is the inevitable twist which in this case focuses on the building which was the resting place of our young woman.  

And back in 1849

Google maps list it as 51 Spear Street and in 1851 the site was home to William Wrigley who listed his occupation as beer seller.  He had been selling beer and cheer since at least 1841, and a decade later had been joined by Matilda Wood at 55, and Richard Fox at 57 who made ginger beer.

And they had competition from two more beer sellers as well as the White Lion Tavern the Crown and Mitre and the Royal Olympic Tavern.

Mr. Wrigley’s business had an annual estimated rental value of £18 which was a tad higher than the stables located next door which is now a vacant plot.

But while the building looks the part, with that cellar window which the maps show had steps down to it I can't be sure.

So sadly perhaps no ghost of Mr. Wrigley to stir at the use of his wall as a venue for paintings and Bubble writing.

Location; Spear Street, Manchester

Pictures; Spear Street in 2023, and 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1849, 1844, from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 39 ............. the mystery of the moving street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/09/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_13.html

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

Nightingale’s, and an old 78 RPM ............. a little bit of our retail past on Wilbraham Road

Now I wonder if anyone remembers Nightingales the electrical shop which traded from 436 Wilbraham Road.

Like most of the strip of shops along the stretch from Keppel to Albany no 436  is now a fast food out let but back in the middle decades of the last century Nightingale’s sold all things electrical and by 1960 had an impressive range of televisions, transistor radios, fridges and washing machines in its window.

Now I know it was there by 1938 and still there in 1960 by a chance find and three photographs from the Manchester Digital collection.

The chance find was an old 78 RPM record of the Boston Promenade Orchestra performing the Ritual Fire Dance and the Conclusion to Bolero conducted by Arthur Fiedler.

And the catalogue number dated the record to 1938 while the perfectly preserved dust cover offered up the Nightingale name and the address of both the Chorlton shop and another at 58 Wilmslow Road in Withington.

At which point I can claim little credit for the find or much of the subsequent research.

It was Andy Robertson’s son who came across the record and Andy who went looking in Manchester's  digital collection, leaving me the easy job of hunting down the record in the HMV catalogue.

In time I am sure there will be people who offer up all sorts of memories of the shop, what they bought there and perhaps a beginning and end date to the business.

For now I shall just reflect that it wasn’t too long ago that high streets and more humble parades of shops could boast a full range of shopping experiences from the wool shop, electrical business along with DIY, hardware and the odd travel agents.

So there you have it a bit of our consumer past on Wilbraham Road, with just one last observation that it had gone by 1969.

Additional research by Andy Robertson

Pictures; record and dustcover, circa 1938 from the collection of Andy Robertson and Nightingale’s on Wilbraham Road, 1960, A E Landers, m18308 & m18307, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass