Discovering a little bit of Whalley Range’s history

Now here is a bit of history that I bet lots of people know but has passed me by and it concerns St Margaret’s playing fields in Whalley Range.

The land is on Brantingham Road and was gifted by the wife of one of the vicars of St Margaret’s and in in 1937 it was the destination of that years Chorlton carnival.

Back in the 1930s there were a number of carnivals across the city but Chorlton’s seemed to be the biggest according to the Manchester Guardian which reported that “the gala held in St Margaret’s playing fields, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, on Saturday [June 19th] may be said to mark the opening of the charity carnival season.“*

Now I recently wrote about the carnival but pretty much ignored the playing fields but after a few people asked where they were I went looking.**

The obvious place was beside St Margaret’s Church in Whalley Range and while I was close I wasn’t in quite the right place.

The church had been built in 1849 on land given by Samuel Brooks but the playing fields date from sometime later.

I have yet to establish when but I do know that in 1894 the land was still part of Whalley Farm and as late as 1911 Brantingham Road had yet to be developed fully.

That said I hope to talk to Mr Boulter the vicar at  St Margaret’s and perhaps even before then someone will come forward a bit more of the story.

And within minutes of posting this story,  Pawel Lech Michalczyk who pointed out that  "St Werburgh's Church owned playing fields.

These were opposite Parkgaye Farm, accessible via the short cul-de-sac off St Werburgh's Road.

It was the whole triangle between the railway line and Chorlton Brook, almost up to Mauldeth Road West.

Its now part of the Chorlton High School campus."

Location; Whalley Range

Picture; horses being paraded along Oswald Road sometime in the 1930s, courtesy of Mrs Kay, from the Lloyd collection

*Manchester Guardian June 21 1937

Happy Birthday Beano

 It was 85 years ago today you rolled off the printing presses.

Since then, there have been 4,000 editions, and 7,000 characters have walked across your pages.

You have seen us through wars, a nasty epidemic and the Great Freeze of 1947 and 1962-3.

And now you are introducing new characters to reflect the social changes in the country.

So, I hope the birthday cake is up to the event.

And on a personal note, you have entertained me and my kids over 60 of your 85 years.

Pictures, Beano covers no. 2803, April 6th 1996, & No. 2893, December 27th, 1997, from the collection of Ben

A Polar Bear, the Eldora Ice Cream Company ..... and a flood of memories

There will be someone who is an expert on the Eldorada range of ice creams and lollies.

Back in the 1950s and 60s I just took them for granted.

And anyone born in the first half of the last century I guess will remember the Polar Bear which appeared on the adverts for their products.

I had all but forgotten the ice creams, but this advert in the Eagle comic for 1959 brought the memories flooding back, and particular the Topper lollies which came in a strawberry flavoured outer coating.

The ice cream inside was whiter, than the Walls or Lyons alternatives and I think I was never as keen on it.

Added to which, I think Eldorado was slightly cheaper than its two main rivals, but here I may be unfair on their products.

And as you do I went looking for their history which is still a piece of research in progress.

I think they originated in London in the 1920s, but so far apart from a reference to the minutes of the business from 1925-1960 in The National Archives,* I have only a handful of images of the Polar Bear, a news story of a gas explosion in their Lambeth factory, and a promotional film advert from the BFI entitled Beautiful Women.**

Along with an exchange in the House of Commons from 1931 which suggests the company had questionable employment conditions.***

So I await someone with more information or an ability to ferret out the full story.

And in the meantime I close with a link to which an interesting blog on Ice cream posters of the past.****

Location; Eldorado Ice Cream

Picture, advert for Topper Ice Cream Lollie, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22

* Eldorado Ice Cream Ltd, wholesale ice cream manufacturers, The National Archives https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F178809

** Eldorado Ice CreamBeautiful Women https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-eldorado-ice-cream-ad-beautiful-women-1937-online

*** ELDORADO ICE CREAM COMPANY, HC Deb 09 June 1931 vol 253 c805, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jun/09/eldorado-ice-cream-company

**** REFRESH YOUR MEMORIES OF THE ICE CREAM ADS AND POSTERS OF BYGONE DAYS, HTTPS://WWW.PIXARTPRINTING.CO.UK/BLOG/ICE-CREAM-ADVERTS/

How we used to live …….. 1947 ……… beating the shortages and living with food rationing

Now jam making is one of those activities that opens you up to ridicule and all too often is associated with people of a certain age who have too much time to fill.

All of which is a bit unfair, given that it remains a very useful way of using up a surplus fruit.

Of course, with plentiful jam in the supermarkets and the presence of a freezer somewhere in the house, the faff of making the stuff seems a rural pastime too far.

And yet over the centuries jam making was an essential part of domestic life.

So much so that in 1947 it was one of the leaflets produced by the Ministry of Food, to inform families of how to make the best of food at a time when the country was still enduring rationing.

The leaflets included “Making the most of the Fat Ration”, the delights of food that could be found for free in the hedgerows and instructions on how to make short pastry as well how to cook cabbage.

Like the chef Delia Smith in the 1970s, the Ministry set off from the position that not everyone knew how to cook, which the last world war may have had a part to play.

During those six years lives had been disrupted with many people on the Home Front relying on canteen food served up in the factories where they worked or at communal food centres.

Added to which many children had spent part of the war away from home as evacuees, and so rarely got the opportunity to lean from their parents about cooking a meal.

Each leaflet was awash with recipes, from tradition ones to those inspired by rationing and shortages, like Barley Mince, Dresden Patties and Cheese and onion turnovers.

And that brings me back to our leaflet on Jam making and Fruit Bottling, which was issued by the British Gas Council with the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Now, I am not tempted to bottle the pile of strawberries, but my fancy has settled on Orange or Lemon Curd, which given this was 1947 includes the choice of either 2 fresh eggs of the dried variety.

We shall see.

Location; 1947

Pictures; Jam making and Fruit Bottling, leaflet issued by the British Gas Council with the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture, 1947

Marketing the Manchester Ship Canal, 1919-1939 .......... at the Central Reference Library ... the exhibition to do

 The exhibition.

"The exhibition showcases a range of original publicity material and print adverts created from the 1920s to the early 1950s as marketing for the Port of Manchester.

These decades saw a revolution in publicity with modern ideas on typefaces, much more dynamic imagery and bolder use of colour. Manchester Ship Canal Company started using imaginative visual designs to sell itself more effectively internationally and encourage industrial growth around the docks.

The exhibition highlights the work of nine commercial artists employed by the Ship Canal Company. The most innovative in their designs to promote the docks were born locally and trained at the Manchester School of Art.

The exhibition is on display in Manchester Central Library from 29th July 2023.

Curated by Martin Dodge, Department of Geography, University of Manchester.

Exhibition supported by Manchester Archives+,  The University of Manchester and Manchester Geographical Society"

The posters like this one by Horace Taylor from 1927 will be displayed in  lightboxes in the library. 

This follows on from the very successful exhibition last year on the Simon's of Wythenshawe.*

So with the exhibition about to open today, here are some of items on display.

Location; Manchester Central Reference Library, St Peter's Square

Picture; Marketing the Manchester Ship Canal, 1919-1939, 2023 and Place your Factory on the Waterline, Horace Taylor, 1927

*Wythenshawe Exhibition, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Wythenshawe%20ExhibitionLocation; 

Who buried Mr. Birley in an open space in Hulme?

I should say that it’s not just who buried him but it’s who then found him.

What was lost is found, 2023

At which point I should point out that it is not Mr. Birley as such but the memorial stone commemorating the opening of Manchester’s first Board School in the June of 1874.

It is a story I have already visited but always promised myself a second go. *

I had thought I would crawl over the newspaper accounts of the opening, featuring the speeches of the good and worthy and their observations on the importance of education and in particular the features of Board School No. 1.

The school, 1962

These included a basement kitchen “with all appliances for tea parties”, “large places for storing fuel, with convenient shoots from the street above, so that all the rooms are warmed by open fireplaces and are thoroughly well ventilated”. 

Added to which the Manchester Guardian reported “The walls are faced to a certain height with glazed bricks, which can be easily cleaned, and on which writing or other defacement is impossible. 

Round both school rooms run bands of encaustic tile, bearing Shakespearean mottos”.**

But one Victorian worthy’s speeches on the value of education are pretty much like another so instead my thought turned to how the stone got there and who decided it should see the light of day again.

Walking to the Brooks Building 2023

Manchester Board School No.1 or Vine Street School as it became was situated close by and so it is entirely possible that when the school was demolished the memorial stone was just part of heaps of building spoil.  Just a little distance away developers found the original sunken baths of the Leaf Street Swimming Baths which were back filled after the walls of the building had been knocked down.

Or it may have been carefully stored away ready for the moment when a new educational institution was built in Hulme close to the old school.***

Someone one will know, and perhaps also reveal who decided to put it on display in a small area of land left to grow wild.

We shall see.

Location; off Old Birley Street, Hulme

 Pictures, memorial stone of Board School No 1, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the school, 1962, H. Milligan, m64822, , courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  

*The lost Hulme School ……, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-lost-hulme-school.html

**The First Board School in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, June 12th 1874

***The Brooks Building, part of the MMU.

A pharmacy …. a heap of praise …… and a bit of history

We all have our favourite shops.  

Beech Road Pharmacy 2022

They are ones which are rooted in the community, and whose loss would leave a hole in where we live.

Now, I have lived on Beech Road for almost half a century, and I have seen shops come and go.

Some were here when I arrived, others appeared, promised much, and disappeared with little to mark their passing.

But then there have been those which are still fondly remembered and some which still do the business. *

All of which is a lead into The Beech Road Pharmacy.

In the long history of dispensing chemists on Beech Road it follows on from Joy Seal and Harry Kemp which takes us back through the last century to 1901.

Shopping on Beech Road, 1900-2021

And my reason for selecting it lies very much in the professionalism of the staff and the service they offer which extends to the routine of prescriptions and medical advice to the help they have shown to my Italian mother-in-law.

In an age of online communication which make it difficult to talk to someone it is always reassuring when you get that personal assistance.

Of course, there will be plenty of other chemist shops which people will claim do the same, but ours does the business and like us is on  Beech Road and that is enough.

Location; Beech Road

Picture; Beech Road Pharmacy, courtesy of their facebook site, and shopping on Beech Road, 1900-2021, from the collections of Lawrence Beedle, Tony Walker, the Lloyd Collection and the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Muriel & Richard’s green grocery shop, Buonissimo run by Bob and Del Amato, Etchell’s, The Lead Station, Sunflowers, Marcell Materials, along with the Pet shop, Richardson’s and Dave the Butcher. It is of course a personal selection to which other’s will add their own to the list.  

Lost and found …… no 2 …. a bit of Hollywood behind the fuse box

I like silly history.

By which I mean the stuff that serious historians might well dismiss as trivial, but which offers up insights into how we lived and if you are lucky zips you off down all sorts of different twisty turny paths.

And this bit of cinema history does just that.

Last year Brian Norbury posted it on social media with the comment “Found behind a fuse board I was replacing. How did people rent films in 1944?”

Now as someone who rented old fashioned reel to reel films back in the 1970s I was drawn in, and while I thought there might well have been a market for such things in 1944, I thought it might be more likely that this was a trade paper for independent cinemas.

And a trawl of the internet revealed that the Daily Renter was “The most widely read Daily Film Newspaper in Great Britain" and “reaches every Producer, Distributer, and Exhibitor in the United Kingdom at the breakfast table every morning”.*

The same search brought up a link to The British Entertainment History Project which “has been recording the stories of men and women working in the UK film, television, theatre, and radio industries to ensure that information on their lives and experiences is preserved for future generations. 

These interviews tell us about the challenges these people had to overcome, the skills they employed, and the enduring human relationships they forged as Britain developed into one of the world’s major centres of the film and television industries.  

Consisting of more than 700 recordings so far, it is one of the most extensive audio-visual archives of its kind in the world. 

For students, researchers, and members of the public alike, it offers a unique insight and a link to a time when we made some memorable films and groundbreaking television programmes.”**

And one of those recordings was a fascinating sound interview with Harold Myers, who talked about his career as a journalist from the 1930s into the 1980s, writing about and for the cinema, including a stint on the Daily Renter.

So, having gone down several by ways I turned back to the fuse box edition of The Daily Renter.

It was published on Monday July 24th and carried pictures of 24 Hollywood stars, and to my surprise I could tick off a full fourteen who I not only knew but had seen at least one of their films.

Equally interesting was page 12 which featured Days of Glory, a new film in production by RKO, which the Daily Renter commented  “had discovered many potential stars” for the film.

It was released later in 1944 and told the story of a group of Soviet partisans  fighting the German invasion of USSR in 1941, and marked the film debut of Tamara Toumanova and Gregory Peck, as well as most of the other principal actors.***

I can’t say I have ever seen the film but occasionally clips do pop up and no doubt as the war continued through its fifth year and into final one,  Days of Glory might have been expected to be a tool in the propaganda battle.

Alas some critics complained it was too wordy and lacked enough action scenes, and according to one source the film recorded a loss of $593, 0000.***

So there you have it, leaving me just to thank Brian for posting his little bit of 1944 film history.

And after the story went live, Brian came back with two more pages which I couldn't resist including.

Ladies Courage had come out in February 1944, which told the story of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron formed in the United States during World War II.

It received poor reviews from the critics and worse still when a group of WASPS pilots saw the film, they, were astonished at the soap-opera histrionics exhibited by the characters on screen and  immediately dubbed the film "Ladies Outrageous"

To which one article has added "More recent evaluations ranged from a lukewarm Leonard Maltin review - "Well-meant idea fails because of hackneyed script and situations' to noted aviation film historian Bruce Orriss, who dismissed the film as '... little more than an embarrassment to the members of this earnest group of pilots.'"****

Location; behind Brian’s fuse box

Pictures; pages from The Daily Renter, 1944, courtesy of Brian Norbury

*Advert for The Daily Film Renter, 1936

** The British Entertainment History Project,  http://historyproject.org.uk/content/about-us

***Days of Glory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Glory_%281944_film%29

****Ladies Courageous, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_Courageous

Rural Hulme ……..

We all have our own vision of Hulme in Manchester.

For many it will be of those rows of terraced houses many of which were already getting on a bit when Queen Victoria celebrated her jubilee in 1887.

Or the blocks of deck access properties which replaced them in the 1970s, only to be torn down again for a new development two decades later.

But walk a little off Old Birley Street just past George Parr Road and there is a little haven of wilderness which gives out on to the lawns of the Brooks Building.

It may not seem much to anyone who lives in the countryside, but it is still a space of wild unkempt bushes and trees.

And long may it remain so.

Location; Hulme

Pictures; Rural Hulme and the Brooks Building, Bonsall Street, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

News from the Ministry of Food.............. December 1946 Making the most of the FAT RATION

An occasional look at the advice issued by the Ministry of Food in the years directly after the last world war.

Britain continued to ration food and so it made sense for the Government to offer a free advice service on how to plan, prepare and cook meals. 

Here are over the next few days are a selection of the advice issued by the Food Free Advice Service of the Ministry of Food. It is dated December 1946 and gave advice on how best to use rationed food in the run up to Christmas.

Here were suggestions for Butter Extenders which involved adding a tablespoon of flour, some salt and ½ a pint of milk to either 6oz of margarine of butter and mixing to a paste which was then heated in a saucepan with 2oz of melted butter till it was smooth and thick and then left to cool.

It also advised that "roasting potatoes round the joint uses more fat than if the potatoes are cooked separately." 

One method was to slice the potatoes and place them in a greased tin "and they will brown without added fat" 

Or cook thinly sliced potatoes in a "roasting tin with water and salt. There should be enough room for them to lie comfortably without touching and there should be enough water to half fill the roasting tin. Put the tin into a hot oven and bake for one and ½ hours. The water evaporates and leaves shiny golden balls with floury insides."

Picture; from a leaflet issued by the Ministry of Food, December 1946 in the collection of Vince Piggott

News from the Ministry of Food.............. Suggestions for breakfast.

An occasional look at the advice issued by the Ministry of Food in the years directly after the last world war.

Britain continued to ration food and so it made sense for the Government to offer a free advice service on how to plan, prepare and cook meals. Here over the next few days are a selection of the advice issued by the Food Free Advice Service of the Ministry of Food.

It is perhaps refreshing that at a time when the media continues to worry that “there may be two generations of parents who have grown up without the basic knowledge of how to cook” * that a Government agency would promote these skills and that the leaflets would be collected and carefully stored. 

  

The ABC of Cookery which gave "suggestions and methods of cooking and preparing food were obtainable from H.M Stationary Office or through any Bookseller. Price 1/- or ½ by post."


Today it is the turn of breakfast from a 1946 leaflet on Suggestions for Breakfast which along with porridge, were ideas using National or Wholemeal Bread for potato puffs, cheese and vegetable cutlets, fried cheese sandwiches, potato fadge with fried bacon, fried herrings and poached kippers. 

It is a rich diet for a morning meal. The potato puffs were supplied with fillings of cooked sausage meat, root vegetables or cheese. But as the leaflet emphasised, “a good breakfast every day is the first rule in the Book of Health,” and this was a time when far more of our population were engaged in heavy manual occupations.

Picture; from the ABC of Cooking, issued by the Ministry of Food, in the collection of Vince Pig

* During a discussion on You and Yours BBC Radio 4, transmitted January 5th 2012

Dangerous times and peaceful protests

“the dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.”

That was Abraham Lincoln speaking to the US Congress in 1862 on the eve of the Civil War, and it aptly sums up the response of many to the international scene during the 1980s.

This was a time when there was a growing feeling that the world was a less safe place. Relationships between the two super powers had entered a more hostile phase. This was only in part due to the election of hard line politicians in the west and the elevation of equally conservative leaders in the Soviet Union but also to events across the world where the USA and USSR were engaged in a new round of support for proxy governments.

What made it all the more dangerous was that a new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems had come on stream just as the Cold War deepened and hardened.

The US cruise missile which was being deployed in Britain and West Germany took just 15 minutes to reach its targets in the USSR while American Pershing missiles and the Russian equivalent took just 4 minutes from launch to detonation over the cities of Europe.

I remember travelling across France with a young American back packer from the Mid West who remarked how he had come to see the European perspective to this arms race which from the comfort of middle America had never occurred to him.

Here in Britain the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament saw its membership increase dramatically, there were growing numbers of demonstrations across the country and the woman’s peace movement focused on Greenham Common which was one of the sites of the deployment of US missiles.

Here in Chorlton there were attempts to set up a women’s peace camp on the Rec on Beech Road and on a hot summers day in 1984 hundreds attended a peace festival in the park while the City Council declared Manchester a nuclear free zone.

There were those who derided such actions and  some who  still  scorn this popular response. They point to the demise of the Soviet Union and the other Communist Governments of Eastern Europe for a relaxation in those tensions.

But this is to ignore the genuine belief by countless millions that something had to be done.

Picture; badges from the collection of Andrew Simpson, photograph of the peace festival on the Rec from the collection of Tony Walker

The lesson of when humour doesn’t travel ……..

It is one of the obvious observations that what you once found funny no longer does the biz.

True there are plenty of clips of Del Boy, Morcombe and Wise, and the Two Ronnies which stand the test of time.

But then there are heaps more which now go down like a lead balloon

So, for me, much of the 1980s alternative humour has lost it.  Perhaps because so much of it relied on a political and social backdrop that has vanished, which leaves what’s left just a bag of shouty comics relying on four letter words to see them through the set.

And that brings me to the postcard and the play on “shot at his seat”, which if you are old enough or aware enough will be a reference to his estate in the countryside, where those who could held shooting events to which the great and the wealthy were invited or paid to take part.

That said even back in the early 20th century I wonder whether Eric in Blackpool or Brenda in Brighton found the message funny.

After all, if the nearest bit of green is a Corporation Recreation Ground, just a an acre square, the rolling verdant estates of some aristocrat or wealthy businessmen might seem as irrelevant as an excursion ticket to the Moon.

Location; early 20th century

Picture; Picture postcard undated, from the collection of David Harrop

Flying high with BEA ………….. in 1953

Now you have to be a certain age to remember the airline, BEA, or its companion BOAC.

British European Airways was created in 1946, and served Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and was also the largest domestic carrier while British Overseas Airways Corporation, flew services to the rest of the world.

All of which is a lead into the Eagle Book of Aircraft written by John W.R. Taylor in 1953 which in three sections and 170 pages told the story of flight from the earliest attempts to what passed for state-of-the-art aircraft in the early 1950s.

The book was part of the Eagle series, released at Christmas, and sat alongside the Eagle Annual, and other specials featuring characters from the Eagle comic.

I was too young to be given the book as a present, and within a few years if I had been asked to choose between its successor, or others which included Ships and Boats, or Police and Detection, I would always have gone for the Eagle Annual.

So, a full 67 years after The Eagle Book of Aircraft was published I acquired a copy.

It is a little tired at the edges, but it remains a fascinating piece of history, because of course with the passage of over half a century that is what it has become.

Of course it can be read as a straight account of both civilian and military aeroplanes, but its real magic is capturing that world we have lost, when travelling by air was still very much the preserve of the rich, and when even relatively small firms could design, build and market aircraft.

And so for many of its readers the book will have exceled when it described in pictures and words the everyday work of BEA and BOAC, like the story of the flight from London to Brussels.

Back then it started with buying a ticket at the airline’s office, before boarding a bus to the airport, followed by checking in the luggage, passport control, “light refreshment – all part of the service”, and the arrival at Brussels.

In one sense there is nothing odd, about the details of the trip, other than that few people in 1953 would have experienced such a flight.

Indeed, I would be 31 before I took my first flight and dad who spent his entire working career driving across mainland Europe would be 59 before he took his one and only trip in the air.

So, that is it.  I shall go off and read some more from 1953, and in particular look closely at the cutaway pictures of aircraft, each of which offered up detailed descriptions of the parts of the plane.  These were a feature of the Eagle comic, and proved very popular.

Pictures;, all taken from the Eagle Book of Aircraft, 1953

* Eagle Book of Aircraft, 1953, John W.R. Taylor

Taking the curve into Shude Hill ………….

Now I am a fan of our tram network, and I never tire of watching them move across the city at a stately pace, taking the curves and twists bequeathed by our old road network.

Taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022

All of which says much for the skill of the Metro engineers who managed to plot routes using those roads some of which date back into the late 18th century.

And one of my favourite spots is Balloon Street where trams effortlessly take the bendy way up from Corporation Street crossing Dantzic Street before sliding into the Shude Hill stop.

Before the tram Balloon Street was just a cut through up from Victoria Station which I sometimes also used to visit the Co-op archives.

But now the route is closed to traffic and is exclusively given over to the trams which emerge from the canyon like street flanked by tall buildings with a bit of grace.

Location; Manchester

Picture; taking the curve into Shude Hill, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When mannequins choose to hide …..

I like Bronwen’s picture.

She told me “It was taken in a well-known shopping street in Montreal!! This store window fascinated me, but we were hurrying along Rue Ste Catherine, a very popular shopping street, as we were searching out the mural to Leonard Cohen in Crescent Street Montreal”.

Well I hope they found Mr. Cohen, and I am rather pleased they passed the mannequins.

Location; Rue Ste Catherine, Montreal, 2022, from the collection of Bronwen Woods

So Happy birthday Beano

It is 85 years almost to the day,

That your anarchic humour

And outrageous characters 

Marched across your pages,

To delight generations.

I will have first come across you,

Around 1957 on a wet playtime

In Edmund Waller School

When the rain came down like stair rods,

We spent the time in the steamy damp classroom

With old, donated copies of comics

And I fell across you.

Happily I was hooked.

Spending the rest of my child hood

With Minnie, Biffo, Dennis, and the Bash Street Kids.

I aspired to be Danny but in truth was more Plug or Smiffy

Still in the fullness of time I introduced you to

Our Ben who at nearly 40

Still gets his Beano Annual at Christmas

While our Josh walked with the Dandy.

So on Monday when it is your official birthday

I will be spending the day with back copies of your annuals,

A selection of your comics

And my own special edition  of the Beano dated 1949

Along with one of my game packs

Happy brithday ....... with love

And thanks for all the laffs.

Pictures; Beano Annual 1989, and Games pack courtesy of DC Thompson & Rocket Licensing, donated by Seaways Fish & Chip shop, Menai Bridge

Welcome back Wellfield ….. that impressive and historic house in Whalley Range

History hasn’t been kind to that grand old house at the end of Upper Chorlton Road close to the former Whalley Hotel.

Wellfield, 2023

Once it was home to a succession of wealthy families but for most of the last century it was the site of a series of commercial ventures, which included a laundry, a wallpaper warehouse and more recently a carpet showroom.

And to add to the indignity the property was divided into a number of self-contained flats, which were themselves subdivided over the decades.

But all that decline has been reversed by Peter Armistead and his team of architects, builders, and interior designers, and today as the development enters its final stages, 59 Upper Chorlton Road is once again an attractive place to live.

It first appears in the records in 1861 as the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood, their four children and four servants.

Wellfield, 1894

The property commanded a rateable value of £160 which marked it out as one of the more expensive properties along the road with views across fields towards the gardens of Hullard Hall.  

Original floor, 2020

It was set in an extensive garden with two greenhouses and fronted the still private Upper Chorlton Road which had been cut by Samuel Brooks in the 1830s for his new Whalley Range development.

From the beginning it carried the name of Wellfield, and throughout the rest of the 19th century was home to merchants and manufacturers.  

Of these the McQuade family, bought the house in 1871 and stayed there until 1899 were the longest residents.

But by then the surrounding area was being developed, and the fine views towards Hullard Hall were obscured by row of semidetached properties, which included The Whalley Range Orphanage, while some of the grand houses close to Wellfield had vanished to be replaced by more modest homes. 

And by the turn of the century the Hichelwood’s former home had also undergone a transformation, and was being used as a laundry, with only part of the house occupied by a family who worked in the business.

Just when the laundry ceased is as yet unclear but the OS maps for 1933 and 1951 record the property as Wellfield Linen Works, which doesn’t preclude it still being be a laundry.

After the demolition of the industrial workshops, 2020

But in 1954 it is listed as the Paramount Wallpapers Ltd warehouse and in 1962 59 Upper Chorlton Road operated as “Linda Gay Dresses Ltd. Gown manufacturers” and 59a as "Needham F. (Shopfitters) Ltd". 

The last directory entry is for 1969 when the property was listed as “W.P.M ltd. Wallpaper mfs”.

That said in the 2000s it was a carpet warehouse, and I can attest to buying two cheapy carpets from them.

As for the house, by 1939 it was divided into three flats, and continued as such into 1962, and later still seems to have been further subdivided into 10.

It is a common enough story, which saw a once grand house converted to fit the changing needs of the 20th century when its size and decline in the use of domestic servants made it less attractive as a home for one family.

What perhaps adds a twist is its partial conversion in to industrial and retail use.

And that may have just saved it from being demolished in favour of a block of pedestrian flats which maximise the footprint to squeeze as many flats as possible onto the exiting plot of land.

That could still have been the fate of Wellfield, but instead it was acquired Armistead Property who specialise in transforming old residential properties into modern apartments while retaining as much of the original character as possible.*

Work in progress, 2020

Their work has featured on the blog over the years, including the award-winning Denbigh Villas development on High Lane and the equally impressive Carlton Terrace, at 199 and 201 Upper Chorlton Road.**

In the case of Wellfield the plan was to create 17 apartments using the existing house and an extension and creating roof top gardens.

Features like the large south facing window, and the floor tiles in the hall have been retained and any internal features which survived the brutal years of “laundry and multi occupancy”.

But modern planning regulations have precluded the retention of the barrel roof in the cellar.

That said the architect Simon Jones and the contractors have been alert to the possibilities of saving more of the original house as possible.

Added to these the original brickwork has been restored to what it would have looked like when Mr. and Mrs. Hinchelwood first took possession sometime in 1861. 

It will always remain an area of debate as to how far an old property should be saved and what the price of saving it will be.  

There are countless examples of where the conversion has been done badly and fails to honour the original building but done properly and it seems to me, we are on a winner.

Armistead conversions fall into that second category.  Witness Denbigh Villas on High Lane which was home to a famous industrialist and historian as well as a school

Finished rooms, 2023

Its survival and renovation by Armistead has done much to save a bit of our history, while the alternative would have been to see such a historic building left and sliding slowly into an increasingly parlous state till safety demanded its demolition.

That could have been the fate of Wellfield, and I am pleased it has also been saved.

And just after the story went live, Nick Turner got in touch and added, "My dad owned 59 Upper Chorlton Road in the 70s, 80s and 90s. 

It was an upholstery and soft furnishings business known as LE Swain and Turner.

 

The business was in the long warehouse. The block was offices and then converted into 10 studio apartments, I used to collect the rent from the tenants. They've done a great job on it, looks amazing!"

Location; Whalley Range

Pictures; Wellfield, 2022, from the collections of Andrew Simpson the site 1894, from the 1894 OS map of Lancashire and the 1894 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and other  pictures by Jak Spedding, https://jakspedding.co.uk, courtesy of Armistead Property Armistead Property

Finished, 2023

* Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

**Denbigh Villas, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=denbigh+Villas&max-results=20&by-date=true & Carlton Terrace,