The short Chorlton History Walk that’s got the lot ……. this Sunday

 So the challenge is simple ….. how much of Chorlton’s history can you pack into a short walk from Benito on Wilbraham Road to the Lloyds on the corner of Manchester Road?

Kemp's Corner opposite Sunwick, Wilbraham Road, circa 1900

Well, it has got to take in the transformation from small rural community to suburb of Manchester, along with a few murky crimes including the murder of Francis Deacon in 1847, a bit of entrapment and the gang of poachers down from Hulme.

And for those who mourn the loss of the Four Banks, there is that even older popular name of Kemp’s Corner which for a half a century was where people arranged to meet up.

Nor could we leave out the day that Wilbraham Road came to Chorlton, the dastardly theft of a chunk of Manchester Road and why in the event of a house fire you had to knock on the door of the Lloyd’s Hotel.

Woolworths, which became B&M before Benito, 2017

All these with a mix of other silly and serious stories will accompany me and all who turn up at 2.30.pm outside Benito during the great Chorlton Get Together this Sunday.*

Any one in doubt as to who they should approach outside Benito, I am the man with the expanding waistline, a south east London accent and tons of tales of how we used to live in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, before the bars arrived.

Location; Wilbraham Road at 2.00pm on Sunday September 24th

Doing the biz back in 2010

Pictures; Looking down Wilbraham Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, and Woolworths, which became B&M before Benito, 2017, and Doing the biz back in 2010

*Chorlton Get Together; https://chorlton.coop/event/get-together-2023/