The mystery of the lost Chorlton Observatory …. revealed today at 2pm

 As mysteries go it is small beer when compared to the strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle or why Wagon Wheels seem smaller than in the past, but the Chorlton Observatory is our mystery.

The Observatory, Brookfield House, and a bit more, 1853

At which point I should say that the Bermuda Triangle much loved of conspiracy theorists and any one with nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon is largely the invention of cynical writers and TV producers, while I suspect Wagon Wheels haven’t got smaller, it’s that those of us of a certain age have just got bigger.

But the Chorlton Observatory is a puzzle.

Brookfield House, 2023

It shows up on the OS map of Chorlton in 1853 and was at the end of the garden belonging to Brookfield House, which is now the office connected with Chorlton Park.

It stood just to the east of a twisty set of ornamental paths, close to what was the processional drive from Barlow Moor Road up to Hough End Hall.

And while it is clearly marked on the 1853 OS, it is missing from the tithe map of 1839 and is not recorded on the later Ordnance Survey map dated 1894.

At present I don’t know what it was like, who constructed it or whether it actually belonged to Brookfield House.  

All the evidence is that it was in the garden of the house, which in the 1850s was rented by a James Partington who was a doctor and lived there with his wife, Frances, two grown up children and two servants.

It makes sense to have sited the observatory at this point given that according to our own historian the land round about was on a gentle mound.*

That said there is no reference to an observatory in the rate books for either James Partington or his successor.

And some might just point out that given that low rise we may just be dealing with an observation by the map makers that here was a place to have an observatory.

But I rather think given the preciseness of those said map makers the note will refer to a proper observatory.

Leaving me just to say that you can debate the point today at 2pm when in the company of Peter Topping, the “Friends”, and heaps of interested people we will be walking the story of Chorlton’s past.

Location; Chorlton Park

Pictures; the observatory in 1853, from the 1853 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk  and Brookfield House, 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson.

*Badger and Bear Baiting, Chapter 7, December 19th 1885, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette