When Withington pinched a bit of Chorlton ……..

It’s a silly story really but none the less interesting, and that is enough for me.

Houghend, 2023

Back in the winter of November 1885, our own local historian Thomas Ellwood wrote that “The township [of Chorlton] in its early history consisted of four hamlets, viz., Chollerton, Mansleache, Hardie, and Houghend, but the later hamlet, after the Protestation of 1641, was added to the township of Withington.  Within the memory of the oldest inhabitants, the township has only been divided into three hamlets, viz, Hardy, Chorleton, Martledge”. *

To which a later historian added that Houghend “lay to the east of the present St. Werburghs Road, south of Chorlton Brook to Barlow Moor Road and then east of that road.” **

Chorlton Brook running through Houghend, 2023

Hardy was a tiny hamlet on what we call the Meadows, close to Jackson’s Boat bridge and was finally abandoned after the last two families left in the 1850s due to the unpredictable Mersey which could flood with little warning.  Chollerton, or Chorlton was the area around the village green and and along what is now Beech Road. 

While Mansleache or Martledge was the area beyond the former Four Banks and extended up to the Library, and out towards Longford Park in one direction and to the present metro stop in the other.  

It disappeared in the last twenty years of the 19th century when the building boom covered the fields with housing, and so complete was the transformation that the very name Martledge was lost and became known as the “New Village" or “New Chorlton” to distinguish it from community that lived around the village green.

All of which begs the question of why Houghend moved into Withington.

At present I don’t have an answer.

That source of all things to do with the history of south Manchester is silent on the matter.  This is John Booker who published the histories of Chorlton, Didsbury, and Withington in 1857.***

It remains a very scholarly work and draws on a vast number of documents dating back to the Middle Ages.

According to Mr. Booker “Withington possessed the style and title of manor and had its corresponding privileges; the limits of the manor greatly exceeding those of the township [of Withington] embracing the hamlets of Withington, Didsbury, Burnage, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Moss Side , Rusholme , Denton, Haughton and Levenshulme.” **** 

Houghend, 1854

And unless I am contradicted by some medieval expert on land holdings, I suspect it was purely an administrative stroke to shift it from one part of the manor to another. 

Such decisions may explain why according to the tithe maps, a small section of land south of Hardy Lane is marked not as Chorlton but “Withington Detached” while a small patch south of the bend in the Mersey is described as “Chorlton Township”.

But it may just be as simple as two townships sharing good quality grazing lands or a bequeath to a church or monastery in the middle ages.*****

I suspect the search for the explanation is not over.

Of course in one of those little twists, what was the hamlet of Houghend is now back in Chorlton, and a big chunk of it is in Chorlton Park residing in the municipal ward of Chorlton Park.

Location; Hough end, Chorlton, Withington

Pictures; Houghend, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1854 from the OS map of Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*A History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Chapter 1, November 7th, 1885, Thomas Ellwood

**The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John Lloyd, 1972, page 4

***The History of the Chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, Rev. John Booker, 1857

****ibid Booker, page 107

*****The Phenomena of Detached Enclaves of Local Townships. The Case of the Fishlake and Skyehouse, Rob Downing, 2020, Fishlake History Society, http://www.fishlakehistorysociety.uk/index.php/rob-downing-s-research/the-phenomena-of-detached-enclaves-of-townships-the-case-of-fishlake-and-sykehouse