“Tuesday ….. a bit more gone”…… revealing the hall last seen half a century ago

Now you will have to have been born in the early 1960s to remember looking at Hough End Hall from this angle.

By the middle of that decade plans were hatched for a new office development with 25,000 square feet of office space spread over four storeys.

For many it and its neighbour Mauldeth House have been blots on the landscape, but now no longer, for the first of those mid 20th century blocks is coming down.

Last week Andy Robertson recorded the first stage of its demolition and yesterday he was back taking more pictures and carefully chronicling the building’s demise.

I wrote about it on Saturday, and today here is the progress.*

Andy will keep going back building up a collection of images documenting its final demolition, the clearing of the site, and then back again as the builders break the ground for the new supermarket and finishing as the building is finished.

There was some confusion after the first story on the Lidl supermarket was posted, with some people telling me that the application had been turned down.

But not so.  

The plans were approved in June of this year.**

ll of that said I am just a tad economical with the truth, because had you looked across along the processional way from what is now the park,at the edge on the right of the pictures would have been part of a long barn which extended up to Mauldeth Road West and along what was that demolished office block.

So not quite the view Sir Nicholas would have encountered. 

Location; Mauldeth Road West

Pictures; demolishing the eyesore, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*See it while you can ……. the sudden appearance of Hough End Hall https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/09/see-it-while-you-can-sudden-appearance.html

**Planning – Planning Application Documents 135647/FO/2022, Erection of a new Lidl foodstore (Use Class E) with associated car parking and landscaping, 550 Mauldeth Road West Manchester M21 7A, Approved, Manchester City Council Planning Portal,  https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=RM9TZ5BCFV300