The story waiting for the memories …….. Chorlton’s secret and forgotten places

There remain little pockets of land across Chorlton, devoid of houses and pretty much apparently forgotten.

Lost and forgotten Chorlton, Manchester Road, 2023

Some still show signs of past cultivation, along with the remnants of a hut or shed but most are hidden away, and long ago have been reclaimed by nature.

One such strip runs beside the Metro line from Manchester Road as far as the old Chorlton Junction east of St Werburghs Road where the Fallowfield Loop departed from the main railway line.

According to the historian John Lloyd, “It was intended that the section through Chorlton [of the railway line] should be four tracked and land on the east side was reserved for this purpose.  

Even when the St Werburgh’s Road Bridge was rebuilt in the 1920’s an arch for the additional tracks was provided but in the last few years much of this strip has been sold for housing”.*

And as late as 1952 the OS map shows this as open land, a section of which the Bailey family used to graze their bulls and horses, and which in the 1930s and 40s was reserved for the travelling circus who used it for their animals, including their two prize elephants, Salt and Sauce.*

A railway line and an aqueduct, 1955

All of which I was reminded of today when Peter showed me a series of pictures, he and Linda had taken during Chorlton’s Open Garden Project.***

Some were of the forgotten railway land, while others followed the line of the Thirlmere Aqueduct which runs through Chorlton, and having crossed Manchester Road follows a route which takes it along Cheltenham Road across Oswald and Grange Roads before leaving the township and proceeding into Stretford.****

I had often wondered why there was such a long thin strip of valuable building land snaking through the heart of the area, and now I know leaving me just to ponder on what memories these bits of land might hold for people.

I suspect that the elephants have long since faded from living memory, but there will be plenty who remember the bulls, as well as the grazing horses and so I look forward to accounts of daring dos along the overgrown land, and perhaps illicit cricket games on the strip between Grange Road and Oswald Road, and if we are very lucky perhaps a few pictures.

And just maybe there will be the odd person who has pictures of the old railings, along the former railway land.  

Looking along the Aqueduct, 2023

Much of the bits are rusty forlorn and in danger of being covered in ivy but they are a little bit of that old Chorlton.

So, someone might have caught them on camera.

They may even have stories of when the German air force came looking for the Aqueduct, and dropped a string of bombs across Chorlton in the December of 1940.  They failed to hit it but did serious damage to a heap of properties and killed several people. 

We shall see.

The invite to the Urban Forest, 2023

That said one section of the land  beside the old railway is being transformed into Chorlton's own Urban Forest.******

It can be accessed from Buckfast Close which is off Buckinham Road and in time will have all the promise of a mysterious spot.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; secret and overgrown bits of lost Chorlton, Manchester Road, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the land and Thirlmere Aqueduct, 1955, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1952, Peter Topping's pictures, 2023 from Open Garden Week and Marsh Meadow, 1950 from the Lloyd Collection

Rewilding our city, 2023

To which my botanist friend David Bishop has responded with a series of comments which have given me pause for thought on our secret places and forests in Chorlton.  

At the entrance to the Urban Forest, 2023

He writes, "Trouble is, Andrew, they tend not to remain secret - and if they don't get built on, people now want to 'rewild' them - which often seems to mean planting things - especially bloody trees! 

I wish that people would learn what the word 'rewild' actually means. It means establishing high functioning ecosystems on a landscape scale by restoring as many trophic levels as possible. 

You can't do that in a city (wolves in Southern Cemetery anyone?). You can increase the biodiversity of such spaces by careful and ecologically sound management but planting stuff - especially bloody trees - usually reduces biodiversity".

It is an alternative view which challenged the mass planting of trees on the meadows three decades ago, and while I enjoy the landscape on Chorlton Ees, a bit of me wishes it could be returned to its 19th century state of meadow land.

The Marsh Meadow, 1950

And for those who wonder what the "Meadows" once looked like, the picture The Marsh Meadow shows a very different landscape and one that would have been familiar to anyone who lived in Chorlton a full 70 years ago.

And it may even inspire more memories.

 

Marsh Meadow was at the point on the modern meadows where Ivy Green Road suddenly twists north to join Cartwright Road and Hawthorn Lane.

 

*Lloyd John, The Township of Chorlton cum Hardy, 1972, page 91

**Chorlton and a circus, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20and%20a%20circus

***Chorlton Open Gardens, https://www.chorltonopengardens.org.uk/

**** Thirlmere Aqueduct, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirlmere_Aqueduct

*****Bricks, gas pipes and much more ...... memories of the Chorlton Blitz .... Christmas 1940, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/bricks-gas-pipes-and-much-more-memories.html

******Urban Forest, https://www.urbanforest.uk/