Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 25 Ashley Lane ............. now even the name is lost

Now Richard’s picture of Aspin Lane as it runs under the railway viaduct is as atmospheric as you could get.

Aspin Lane, 2016

The wet stone setts, the lonely lane framed by that viaduct takes you back a century or more to another age when this bit of Angel Meadow was one of those places where “poverty busied itself.”

Like Richard I have spent many years wandering the streets around the old St Michael’s Rec and burial ground.  In my case it came after meeting the historian Jacqueline Roberts, reading her book on the area and using some of her material in classes I taught on working class housing in the 19th century.*

And it was she who first introduced me to the idea of using census material to engage students in exploring social history.  The unit focused on the streets around Irk Street, John Street and Back Ashley Lane in the 1851.

Ashley Lane, 1849

Here in just 16 houses lived 120 people, making their living from a variety of occupations from factory work, to cap makers, porters and that lowest of jobs, a brush maker.

Some like Mr and Mrs Shaw and their three children lived in the cellar of number 3 Back Irk Street, while round the corner at nu 3 John Street the eight members of the Riley family were squeezed into one of its two rooms.

So Richard’s photograph drew me in but as hard as I looked there was no Aspin Lane on the old maps, but that was simply because Aspin Lane was indeed Ashley Lane and an unknown photographer had got there before us and in 1910 took a picture from almost the same spot.

Ashley Lane, 1910

But all stories deserve a second look.

And after my old facebook friend Bill questioned me on my comment on the status of brushmakers I went looking for more on them. 

And the Working Class Movement Library offered some interesting detail, leading me to correct my assumption this was a precarious and low status occupation.**

Location; Angel Meadow

Pictures; Aspin Lane, 2016 from the collection of Richard Hector- Jones, and in 1910, m00218, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and in 1849 from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 142-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Roberts, Jacqueline, Working Class Housing in Nineteenth-century Manchester: The Example of John Street, Irk Town, 1826-1936 1983

***Brushmakers, Working Class Movement Library, https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/working-lives/brushmakers/

Peck's Salmon paste ........ spread on bread and a meal in one

Peck's meat and fish pastes were something I grew up with.

They came in small glass jars and offered up a variety of tastes, from fish, salmon, beef and chicken and were spread on bread.

I had all but forgotten them until my friend Lois opened up the flood gates of memory with a story on her blog.*

I did go looking for the story of Peck's a few years ago but the research led nowhere and I gave up.

Now I knew there was an Australian connection because the jars arrived via a friend of mums who was given them at work and she said they were from Australia.

It never occurred to me to ask but I think B worked for a wholesale firm and these came as one of the perks of the job.

You were never quite sure what would arrive and I suspect that was also how it was with B.

I remember they dominated our lives and were a quick meal, although now I have no idea which I preferred.

Looking back now over fifty years I see they sit along with dripping, blancmange and tinned fruit salad as part of our basic diet and would only be replaced by the fish finger, beef burger and instant whip sometime in the 1960s.

Not that any of this helped with Peck's products.

The best I could do comes from the site of General Mills which is a food company based in Minneapolis and which has  factories still producing the pastes in Australia.**

It would appear that Peck's were making their spreads in Britain by 1891 and opened up in Australia in 1904 reaching their highest sales in the 1950s and 60s.

All of which fits and confirmed that I hadn't mistaken our Australian paste jars and of course offers up that simple observation that more often than not childhood memories are more likely to be true than imagined.

And in turn reminds me of that post war period when rationing had ended but the full impact of the consumer revolution had yet to arrive and in the absence of a cornucopia of instant foods, Pecks pastes on sandwiches did the job.

Pictures; adverts for Pecks product date unknown, taken from Spreading the love for a vintage Australian brand

*Paste sandwiches anyone?  http://loiselden.com/2015/04/29/paste-sandwiches-anyone/

** Spreading the love for a vintage Australian brand, Taste of General Mills, March 2015, http://www.blog.generalmills.com/2015/03/spreading-the-love-for-a-vintage-australian-brand/

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 148 ….. winter on Beech Road

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Strictly speaking it is now 108 years but I am not counting.

And today the story is nothing more than a reflection on the return of an old fashioned winter's day on Beech Road.

It is cold, a pale and indifferent sun has done nothing to lift the temperature, but it ain't raining and that is a bonus as Nigel and Craig are setting about relacing the roof on the jutty out bit at the back of the house.

The tiles a builder used 40 years ago were too heavy, have cause some damage and we are going back to slates ..... the sort Joe would have used back in 1915 when he built the house.

And that is about it, other than to say at midday the evidence of the early morning frost is still there for all to see.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Winter on Beech Road, 20223 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

Who remembers those long coach journeys out to Ewell for an afternoon’s sport?

Now if like me you grew up in one of the inner London boroughs the chances are that one afternoon a week you were bused out to Ewell in Surrey during term time.

I did four years and may have done a fifth although I rather think by the time I was in year 11 we could opt out.

And it was a mammoth undertaking, involving transporting a whole year group by coach from New Cross to the leafy outer suburbs which for me also meant a Saturday morning during the winter to play in the school rugby team.

It was not for me the highlight of the week, in fact it was an ordeal brought on by my inability to travel on buses, coaches and cars without feeling ill.

It began with the smell of those green coaches which the school hired which even now brings on that same uneasy feeling.

I suppose they were the newest of models and were pretty much the workhorse of the company ferrying school children to Ewell, works parties down to the sea coast and hired out to other companies.

And then as the journey got underway the heat from the engine and the smell of the leather seats mixed with an overpowering scent was enough to set me off, made no easier by the knowledge that this was it for 40 minutes only to be repeated again later in the day.

I won’t have been alone in feeling like that and I guess it was a small price to pay to get us all out to participate in a range of sporting activities.

But it does point to that simple observation that if you went to an inner city secondary school there weren’t going to be acres of green fields surrounding the school.

Back on home base we had the asphalt playground and another on the roof of the new block and that was it.

It was another of those little things that marked secondary moderns off from grammar schools.

But in that brave post War era the LCC and the Inner London Education Authority set about offering us out at Ewell something others took for granted.

Looking back I can see the wisdom of their actions even if the experience was an ordeal.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Miss Lydia William Falconar Grant ……… a nurse from the Great War

I never tire of the way that a chance picture of some one long dead sets off a story which goes off in a dozen different directions.

And so, it was yesterday when Tony sent over his photograph of one of the gravestones in Southern Cemetery with the comment, “knowing your interest in the Red Cross I thought you might find this interesting”, which of course I did.

The grave belongs to Miss Lydia William Falconar Grant, who died on April 1st, 1917 at the Ducie Avenue Military Hospital.  

The inscription reads “Lydia William Falconar Grant V.A.D. Member of the Red Cross Society of Australia, born at Falcon Hall, Morningside, Edinburgh and died at Ducie Avenue Military Hospital, Manchester, on the 1st of April 1917, Elder daughter of Peter G. Grant & Emily Grant of Brisbane, Queensland”.

She was born in Scotland in 1880, grew up in Australia, served at a military hospital just off Oxford Road, in Manchester, and died just a year after she was engaged by the Red Cross as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

This was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for servicemen in the UK and across the British Empire.

And this was the start of the story.

Falcon Hall was a very large 18th century mansion in Edinburgh, which according to one source belonged to the family.  Her father described himself as a “land surveyor”, and after returning to Australia in late 1880 he appears to have become a police magistrate.

Miss. Grant was educated at the Ladies’ Methodist College in Melbourne, and was living in Brisbane when she volunteered to serve with the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

She left Australia in September 1916, and after four days in London was posted to Manchester, beginning work in December of that year.

According to one press report she  felt the intense cold weather in Manchester but “she was always very happy, and keenly interested in her work.  Her letters showed also that she had met with great kindness from those with whom she came into contact, and found both in sisters and nurses engaged in the same hospital much congenial comradeship”.*

The hospital was the former Ducie Avenue Municipal school, which had been requisitioned in 1916, and consisted of 240 beds, of which 88 were specialists’ ones, and until 1917 it had an orthopedic section.

Sadly, she contracted measles in the late March of 1917, which developed into Septic Arthritis on March 28th, and by the following day she “became unconscious with very little hope of recovery”.

Her funeral was reported in The Searchlight, which was the monthly publication of Second Western General Hospital in May, reporting that "Miss. Grant was one of the first contingent of the Australian Probationer who came to us last November and during her short period of work here and also during her illness, bravely and patiently borne had greatly endeared herself to all she came into contact.

She was laid to rest in Southern Cemetery on April 4th, close to the grave of V.A.D., Nursing Member Pearce, whom we buried only a few weeks ago.  At the request of friends, the funeral was a private one, and the service, which was very impressive, was conducted by the Ven. Archdeacon Aspinall, assisted by Cap, Worseley.  

It was attended by Sargt. C Grant, 1st Australian Division, Capt. Brentnall, R.A.M.C. (T.F.) and a large number of Sisters and nurses of the Second Western General Hospital staff, including seven other members of the Australian contingent”.

I doubt I will ever get to see the letters she wrote home, and so have no way of knowing what she thought of Manchester, but I hope on her days off she got to see something of the city.

There will be more that will come to light about Miss Grant.

For now, we have a photograph, an entry in the book commemorating the work of the 2nd Western General Hospital,*** her Red Cross record card and a handful of other sources.

And I have to thank Bruce Terrell who is a relative and first alerted me to the photograph of Miss. Grant and to Bruce Anderson who gave me permission to reproduce pictures of the Ducie Avenue Military Hospital from his excellent web site, Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive****, and went off and did his own research and coming back with many of the other sources I used, from the Cairns Family History.

Leaving me just to thank Tony Goulding who sent me the picture of the grave and set me on  the story.

Location; Scotland, Australia, Manchester

Pictures; gravestone of Miss Lydia William Falconar Grant, 2020, from the collection of Tony Goulding, cover 2nd Western General Hospital, 1919, courtesy of David Harrop, photograph of Miss. Grant, Women in war, ANZAC Centenary Queensland, 2014-2018, https://anzac100.initiatives.qld.gov.au/remember/women-in-war/index.aspx, Ducie Avenue Military Hospital, 1916-1919, courtesy of Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, https://rusholmearchive.org/rusholme-military-hospitals-1914-1918

* Cairns Family History, https://cdfhs.org/indexes/cairns-wwi-soldiers/grant-lydia-wilhelmina-falconer/

**The Late Miss Lydia Grant,  V.A.D., Cairns Post May 16th, 1917

*** 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester , 1914-1919

**** Ducie Avenue Military Hospital, 2nd Western General Hospital, Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, https://rusholmearchive.org/rusholme-military-hospitals-1914-1918

***** Cairns Family History, https://cdfhs.org/indexes/cairns-wwi-soldiers/grant-lydia-wilhelmina-falconer/

Don't grieve for me Tom Mix .... I remember you only as Hanburys

So, farewell

2023

That place on Barlow Moor Road.

To me you will always be Hanburys,

But for those newcomers you were just the Co-op

And for those whose memories stretch back beyond 1970,

You were Radio Rentals, Tesco and of course the Palais De Luxe.

I missed your glory days as the cinema of dreams

And while some have over the years called you

The Bug Hut, and Nitty Nora’s Home from Home

You were our first true picture house,

Opened in 1914 and lasted a few short decades,

Till television and a night in front of the box

1928

Finished you off.

I owe you this last picture from Peter Topping

Who snapped you on November 25th

And if now I wandered up to see you

1980s

I fear you will have gone,

Leaving only a pile of twisted girders, broken concrete

And heaps of celluloid memories.

As for those who ask what next?

I offer up  a link to the Planning Portal*

Where all will be revealed.

Location Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Goodbye to my cinema dreams, 2023, Peter Topping, The Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives, Hanburys shopping bag, 1980s, courtesy of Catherine Brownhill, 

*097667/FO/2011/S1, Erection of a part 3/part four storey building to form a commercial use on the ground floor and 13 self-contained flats above, with associated car parking (5 spaces) and cycle storage, following demolition of existing property, Manchester City Council Planning Portal, https://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=LTKO3CBC06N00&activeTab=summary

That amazing Mr Banks ....... his pictures and other practitioners of his trade

Now I remain fascinated by what can turn up in an old cupboard, under the floor boards or in this case the family picture album.

And for what follows I have my old friend Oliver Bailey to thank, who having read the story on the photographer, Robert Banks, sent up a selection of the trade cards which accompanied some of the family pictures.

Oliver told me that "glancing through your blog on I saw the name Banks, which rang a bell as he was one of many that took photos of different branches of the family and I attach copies of mountings he used plus a list of all the practitioners of the art that the family used".

All of which was a find indeed.

Mr Banks was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

From there he set up in Manchester, was employed to take family photographs, and went out on to the streets of the city to record what he saw.

He was commissioned by the Corporation in 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

The mountings on the back of Oliver’s family photographs record the growing success of Mr Banks who by degree began opening studios across the city and beyond including Blackpool.

Along with these cards, Oliver provided a list of 35 other photographers, many of whom were working outside Manchester and include places ranging from Todmorden, Southport, Rochdale, Pendleton, Halifax and Burnley.

At which point I will have to go back to Oliver and enquire as to how so many far flung photographers were snapping the family.  I suppose the explanation for some like Southport, Hollingworth Lakes, and Douglas in the Isle of Man will be holiday opportunities, But Sierra Leone will throw up a story.

The list is a treasure trove, because it offers the chance to pursue the careers of each of these picture takers.
I know the Manchester ones will be there in the local directories which I have but the ‘out of town’ ones are all new to me and over time I will pursue them.

Just leaving me to thank Oliver, whose family farmed in Chorlton from the 1760s.

Location; everywhere






Pictures, trade cards from Robert Banks, late 19th, early 20th centuries, from the collection of Oliver Bailey

Private Ernest Francis Hahn from Australia, who was buried in Southern Cemetery in 1915 aged 22

It began with this simple grave stone in Southern Cemetery to a young man who died far from his home having crossed the world to fight at Gallipoli.

He was Ernest Francis Hahn who had been born in Redesdale in what was then still “the colony of Victoria” in Australia on June 23 1893, and left Melbourne in the December of 1914 ending up on the shores of the Ottoman Empire in the ill fated Gallipoli campaign.

He was wounded in early May with gunshot wounds to his chest and died here in Manchester at the General Hospital of enteric fever on June 25 1915.

It is a story that could be replicated many times but what marks this story out is that David Harrop posted the picture on a social network site in response to a request for information about Private Hahn's grave in Southern Cemetery from a relative and almost immediately he received a reply from Margaret Cooper in Australia, who supplied David with the story of this young man and concluded with that it was “nice to see the photos at Southern Cemetery and that he has such a peaceful resting place.”

And with Margaret's permission I was able to access a wealth of family material  which gave a context to the life of young Ernest who was the son of Heinrich Frederick Hahn who had been born in Germany in 1843, settled in Australia in 1865 and married Jane Rose in 1870.

Mr and Mrs Hahn had fourteen children had worked hard and were well respected in their home town.

Amongst the documents were Ernest's birth certificate, his obituary and his ANZAC medal along with much more about his brothers and sisters.

What also makes this new link with Margaret's family all the more fascinating is the sight of an Australian birth certificate which differs from those issued in Britain and which provided a wealth of additional information not included on our own.

All of which has added to my own knowledge and wish to go looking for my own Australian family.

So we all win and I shall close with Margaret's reply to my last email, "thank you for telling the story of Ernest Hahn in your blog. 

Gradually the stories of the occupants of the lonely graves are being told and it is nice to know people care and remember them and want to record who they were and something about their lives..............I think Australians are surprised at the respect shown by the English towards the war graves."

And here of course I have to mention David and his  unique collection of memorabilia from both world wars, some of which is permanently on show a in the Remembrance Lodge.

Picture; the grave stone of Private E R Hahn, 2015 from the collection of David Harrop, and Private E R Hahn's ANZAC medal courtesy of Margaret Cooper.

Additional material courtesy of Margaret Cooper

Looking into the future of Eltham High Street in 1975

The High Street in 1910

Now I don’t normally go in for then and now pictures but I have made an exception with these two images from a 1975 document issued by the Council.*

The book was part of a planning consultation and fell through the letter box after I had long left Well Hall for Manchester.

I am not sure what my dad and sister Stella thought of the process, or the ideas but now both the planning exercise and their suggestions  are as much a piece of history as any of the stories I usually write.

The High Street in 1971

So along with the 1970s pictures there is also an insight into how the planners were thinking back then and just how far the bold new world they suggested has come about.

And for me the images have a special connection. Our Stella worked at the library and from 1964 till I left Well Hall in '69 it was a regular venue, along I remember with Marks & Spencer's where I bought my first ever fruit yogurt.

Now that is not only revealing a secret but says so much on the new horizons which were opening up for a lad from south East London.

Pictures; from A Future for Eltham Town Centre, Greenwich Borough Council, Planning Department, 1975

*Of town plans and visions of a future that never quite happened, Eltham in the 1970s and Manchester in 1945.http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/of-town-plans-and-visions-of-future.html

Uncovering more of that hidden house in Eltham High Street

Here we are again with that house tucked away down an alley beside a bank on the High Street.

It was the home of the Fry family, possibly from 1819 and certainly through that century till the last of the Fry sisters died in 1907.

And it is a story I keep returning to, partly because it says a lot about a middling family here in Eltham during the 19th century and because it is a case book example of how you start with a name, go on to locate the family home and along the way discover that a property you thought lost is still there.

Now all of that you can read about by following the link to Ivy Court, John Fry or the Fry sisters.

I fear nothing will remain of the original features, but the firm may be in possession of the deeds which will date the building tell us a lot about the Fry family and may well throw up other interesting stories.

Picture; Ivy Court today courtesy of Jean Gammons

Repeating history ..... yesterday in London

History is full of those moments when good men and women come together to challenge the voices of hate, discrimination, and prejudice.

London, 2023

And yesterday over a 100, 000 walked through the streets of London calling out the rising tide of antisemitism.

Manchester, 1962

It is a sad fact that such a demonstration is repeated by almost every generation from those who stood against Oswald Mosley’s attempts to revive his fascist message in the early 1960s, to the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 and back through history.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War returning Jewish and non-Jewish servicemen and women had to confront the activities of various antisemitic groups, which they successfully did.

Nor of course is it just antisemitism, Islamic hate crimes are on the increase, as are examples of prejudice and outrageous treatment of other ethnic groups.

But yesterday it was to draw attention to antisemitism and to reiterate that in a modern diverse Britain antisemitism has to be challenged.

Manchester in London, 2023

Location; London, 2023

Pictures; of yesterday’s demonstration courtesy of Stephen Gilchrist and demonstration at Belle Vue against Oswald Mosley, 1962, m07971, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Growing up in Australia with no past, no family and just unanswered questions ..... Empty Cradles

The story of the children sent to Canada from the late 19th century into the early 20th has almost passed out of living memory, but those who went to Australia were still leaving our shores in the 1970s.

These Australian stories are no less harrowing than those young people who travelled across the Atlantic.

They bring to the surface all the same feelings of anger and incredulity that someone could think it was a good idea to solve the problems of our homeless, neglected and poverty stricken children by dumping them in other parts of the Empire.

Now before any one accuses me of a lack of historical impartiality I do have to say that like many of the descendants of children sent from Britain to Canada I have been very careful in examining the case for their migration. Some in Canada might even feel that I have been over cautious about coming to a judgement.

Here is it is enough to say that despite some well meaning thinking on the part of some good people and a belief that wide open spaces were a better environment than the streets and dismal courts of the poorer parts of our cities the policy was wrong.

And it was seen to be wrong at the time.  Almost from the onset of the programme people were worried about the lack of supervision and inspection in Canada and had been challenging the very premise upon which the migration was undertaken.

So, that I hope has negated that oft used argument by the apologists of the scheme that we are in  some way judging past actions by  present day sensibilities.   It always was a tired and barren argument but one totally exposed when you consider that the policy was still in full swing in the 1960s and really only came to an end 40 or so years ago.

This was no case of another time and another place, but at a moment when Britain had embraced the welfare state, believed we were advancing to a new bright future which offered new life choices to its entire people and set against full employment and growing prosperity.

And yet the children were still being sent.  In some cases having been told their parents were dead and in almost all cases denied any real knowledge of who they had been or why they were sent.

This shabby little episode, this last flickering of a discredited policy in child care was exposed by Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker in the 1980s.  Her work in providing a history for all those Australians who grew up with no knowledge of a family in Britain or the circumstances which led to them being sent to Australia is documented in her book Empty Cradles which in turn became the film Oranges and Sunshine.

It is a powerful account of the confusion, hurt and anger felt by many of these young people combined with an insight into the reluctance shown on the part of the charities and government agencies to either help or even admit the extent of the programme.

And this is why I think it is essential reading for all of us engaged in telling the story of British Home Children.

For most of us our own BHC relatives are dead and many of their records are scattered, lost or unobtainable.  Even just identifying the names of the young people is a huge task and some I fear will never emerge from the shadows.

So for most of us looking for family it is a matter of pouring over newspaper accounts, census returns and just possibly if we are very lucky the records of the local work house or children’s charity.

Going the next step and trying to understand the justification for the migrations is wrapped up in dense committee minutes of long forgotten charities or the often vain self congratulatory biographies and autobiographies of the worthies involved.

All of which means our own feelings of anger and disbelief are one step removed.  Mrs Humphrey’s book has the value that here are the voices and experiences of people still alive, still able to recount their stories and give a context to what happened.

In its way the book has done more to make me angry about what went on than the plight of my own great uncle or the stories uncovered by Lori and Norah and the many others committed to telling the story of our Canadian BHC.

But it is also a very revealing insight into how the charities and authorities tried to minimise what went on and in some cases to perpetuate the myth that it was all oranges and sunshine and that they were only doing what was best for the children.

More than once Mrs Humphrey’s was told that her work had caused hurt to those who ran the charities to which her reply was always that she knew of countless other Australians who had been at the receiving end and were also still hurting.

I know there are those who feel that the publicity around the book takes the limelight away from the experiences of our Canadian relatives but I rather think it is the reverse.  Empty Cradles exposed an awful episode in child care, opened up the debate and contributed to national apologies made by the Australian and British Governments.

All of that was a good thing, and will lead I have no doubt to an apology from the Government of Canada.  The work of those promoting the petition along with the growing number of books, exhibitions and research will continue to shine a light on all those young people sent north across the Atlantic.

In the meantime I shall finish the book and order up the DVD of the film.

*Empty Cradles,  was published in 1994. Its sales of 75,000 copies helped to fund the work of the Child Migrants Trust at a critical time when British government grants had been stopped. Empty Cradles has been dramatised as the 2011 feature film Oranges and Sunshine.

The Child Migrants Trust was established in 1987 by Margaret Humphreys CBE, OAM. It addresses the issues surrounding the deportation of children from Britain. In the post-war period, child migrants as young as three were shipped to Canada, New Zealand, the former Rhodesia and Australia, a practice that continued as late as 1970. http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/

Walking past the Montague Arms, on Queens Road

Now the Monatgue Arms is one of the places that does not loom large in my memory.

I would have passed it regularly enough, given that Lausanne Road where we lived  was on the route via Queens Road and Kender Street  to New Cross Library.

But we left Peckham when I was thirteen so the place was  just  a pub I passed and never went in.

All of which means it's story and its history belong to others.

That said I rather think my old friend Peter has captured it well.

Peter and I have worked on many projects including an eighty meter instalation, and I rather think we just have begun a new one.

After all there are some fine buildings with intriguing stories waiting to be recorded.

Painting; The Montague Arms, © 2011 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

When they closed that place in Stretford ………

There will be many ways to remember that place on Great Stone Road in Stretford.

For some it will magic musical nights when this was The Hard Rock, for others an introduction to 10 Pin Bowling and others of a mature age that emporium of paint, wall paper, and rotating screwheads.

And despite once being young and recalling the lit-up pylon of Hard Rock it was wandering the aisle for all things D.I.Y. and house plants.

So in recognition of Stretford’s B&Q here are a few of Andy Robertson’s pictures from 2016  as the store moved to its demise.

They follow on from some of Andy’s more recent photographs charting the demolition of the building which will live on in the memories of teenage bowling fans, music aficionados and Eric and his Black and Decker drill and pasting trestle.

Location; Great Stone Road

Pictures, Goodbye B&Q, 2016, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Memories of Chorlton from the 1960s

Wilbraham Road in 1985

Now somewhere between these two pictures of those shops on Wilbraham Road comes this delightful set of memories from Marion Jackson. 

What makes them all the more important is that it is the most recent past which often is not recorded.

“The picture of the shops opposite the Lloyd brought so many memories back. 

To me 1962 doesn't seem that long ago. I was just married, living in a flat in Whitelow Road. 

Ted Green the butcher with sawdust on the floor. 

Coupes with furniture we couldn't dream of buying.

Wilbraham Road in 1903

The ladies in Elizabeth's who rose early to do a little embroidery to start the day. 
Bentons the tobacconist with its wonderful interior. 

Gannons where later I would buy Matchbox cars with our children on the way home from school. 

And Ted and the green grocer who delivered my shopping almost as fast as I got home. 

The flat was followed by Hackness Road and then South Drive.. and I did get my carpets from Coupes.”

It is easy to let these descriptions slide and get lost and with that loss goes a little bit of Chorlton’s past.

I also remember the saw dust on the floor of butcher’s shops, collecting Matchbox cars and tradesmen who would still deliver to the door in the 1960s."

All pretty much now vanished so I hope Marion along with others will keep offering up their priceless memories.

Pictures; Wilbraham Road in 1985 courtesy of Tom McGrath and in 1903 from the Lloyd Collection

A little bit of Australia in the 1930s

I am in Australia gazing across at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or at least a bit of it.

The year is 1930 and the bridge has been under construction since 1923.

Now I am indebted to my friend for both the pictures and the story.  June and I first got together when we discovered a common interest in Alexander Somerville the radical journalist who came here in 1847.*

For me he was a fascinating link into the politics of the 19th century and for June a direct descendant, and so we began writing to each other and discovered our joint passion for all things historical.

June has be kind enough to contribute to the blog over the last few months and I am pleased that she done so again with the story of that iconic bridge which along with Opera House features in so many photographs of Sydney.

“The first proposal for a bridge across the Harbour was made in 1815 by the NSW government architect, Francis Greenaway, an ex convict. 

Other crossings were suggested, including a number for a tunnel. A regular ferry service began in 1842 from Dawes Point to Blues Point. 

(There is now a tunnel as well). Work commenced on July 28 1923 and the bridge was formally opened on Mar 19. 1932 by NSW Premier J T Lang, although the ceremony was disrupted by Francis Edward de Groot, a member of the New Guard, who dashed in and cut the ribbon before the Premier could do so!

The steel arch span is not the world's longest, but it was the world's most massive arch. The main span is 503 m long. The top of the arch is 134 m above sea level. In July 1959, two extra road lanes were opened after two tram tracks on the eastern side of the deck were removed. 

Train lines also run over the bridge. We have visited the pylons at the city end of the bridge and these days, for people who don't mind heights, there is a walk up the span to a magnificent view over the Harbour. I hope this information is useful.”

But equally fascinating is the picture of her father’s car.

“This photo was taken by my father in 1930 when he and my mother first visited Sydney in his first car, a Chevrolet tourer, I think it was called. 

It was when the Great Depression first hit Australia and an acquaintance of Dad's had just bought himself a new car and found himself in financial trouble. 

So Dad, a working class man, helped him out by purchasing his car.

It was Dad's pride and joy until 1938 and his children have fond memories of holidays with the car although Dad's justification for buying himself a car was the difficulty of carrying the tools of his trade, brushes, paint and ladders with a motorbike and sidecar.”

So there you have it a glimpse in to the history of a Australia, as ever the blog has got the lot.

Pictures; from the collection of June Pound

*Alexander Somrerville, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alexander%20Somerville

Painting Peckham ............. baking a bun, and losing a pub The Bun House

Now there should be a competition for what to do with a redundant bakery in Peckham.

If this was 1896 the obvious answer would be to turn it into a pub and call it the Bun House, and when in the fullness of time the market for pubs dries up then there is always a chance a bookmaker will take it over.

Which I think pretty much tells the story of the Bun House on Peckham High Street.

I never went in there but I bet a lot of people did so perhaps Peter’s painting will set the stories rolling.

We shall see.

Location; Peckham, London

Painting; The Bun House Peckham High Street, © 2015 Peter Topping 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

A little bit of lost Eltham, the house behind the bank on the High Street

Ivy Court today

This was the home of Harriet and Lydia Fry.  

They were born here in the 1820s and died here, Harriet in 1895 and Lydia in 1907.

Today it is hidden from view down a passageway beside the bank on the High Street.

But during their life time the property was situated in a long garden which fronted the main road with fine views back across the fields to Shooters Hill and the woods.

It was known as Ivy Court and had ten rooms.

As such it was a suitable house for a family of industry and property.

Their father was John Fry who described himself variously as a builder, carpenter, sawyer, land agent and appraiser and in 1833 he built Fry’s Buildings which were just north of the High Street.

They were twelve wooden cottages which faced east across the fields with longish gardens at the rear and were only demolished in 1957 to make way for an extension to Hinds Store and an additional playground to the old village school on Roper Street.

They were a decent size consisting of three rooms upstairs and two down.  And in 1837 were assessed for the land tax at £3 12shillings.

Ivy Court in 1909

It was these properties which allowed him to qualify to vote in Parliamentary elections and in the election of 1837 he voted for the two Tory candidates.

He was born in 1792 in Kent, possibly at Tunbridge and may have been in Eltham by 1818 for although I can find no record of his marriage to Henrietta she was from Eltham and their first daughter was baptised in the parish church in October 1819.

And this may be a clue to the date of our house which Darrel Spurgeon* suggests was sometime in the 1820s.

Only with the death of Lydia did our house vanish behind the old bank and pretty much out of the view and knowledge of many in Eltham.

It may briefly have come back out of the shadows with the demolition of the old bank but was lost again after the building of the Barclays Branch in 1932.

I would love to know more about its history and what if anything has survived of the original features and perhaps in time that will happen.

But in the meantime I shall resist that unhistorical assertion that here is a house that could represent the changes that have happened to Eltham.

The garden just during the construction of the first bank

True it once stood proud for all to see at the end of a long garden and did so for most of the 19th century, and during their long residence here the Fry sisters would have seen many changes, but so could lots of other people.

Nor was what happened to their home so different from those other even finer homes which were adapted for other uses and different occupants.

So I shall just close by reflecting that for me at least what was once lost is found.

*Spurgeon Darrell, Guide to Eltham, 2000

Picture; Ivy Court, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm and picture of Ivy Court today courtesy of Jean Gammons

Elm Terrace ......... the picture and the story ...... Eltham High Street in 1905

Now, I have to say that this row of terraced houses is not what you expect to see off the High Street.

And I had to think for a few minutes just where Elm Terrace is, because I don’t remember the houses and I doubt few people today will either.

Elm Terrace is of course one of those narrow little streets off the High Street, opposite the Rising Sun.

As a kid I had no reason to go down there, and the last time I ventured down it was an unremarkable place with a Chinese restaurant and not much else, although there was a bit of a ghost sign which had been exposed after a sign board had been taken down.

It is on the side of the wall of number 23 which was once Four Paws Grooming Saloon, but has been empty for a few years.

Now as everyone knows I am attracted to ghost signs and this one intrigues me because all we have left picked out in giant red lettering is ASTEL, leaving me to wait for someone with a longer memory to tell me what it referred to.

So with that cleared up, I am back to the picture, which is dated around 1905.

I say 1905, but that was when the picture postcard was sent and so the actual date it was taken maybe earlier, but not much because, Margaret writes to her aunt “that I have put a cross by our house. Mrs Smith used to live by the lamp post - the house you see at the bottom is Mrs Masson”.

These were four roomed houses and there were 23 of them in the terrace.

Our own historian Mr Gregory writing in1909 said nothing about the properties and limited himself to a speculation on the origins of the name which he thought “in all probability is derived from two old elm trees which at one time stood at the end of the road remote from the High Street.”*

Now I don’t blame him for passing over a description of the houses, at the time they would have been familiar to everyone.

As it was nine years later they do not even warrant a reference in the 1918 street directory, which confined itself to listing just William Ryde & Son, farriers, and The Eltham Public Hall which was owned by R. Smith & Company.

The line of the roof of the hall is just visible at the end of the terrace. It dated from the 1870s and was the British School but with the opening of the school at Pope Street the building was “used for meetings, concerts and similar purposes”.

As for our houses, those “on left were demolished for the Arcade development in 1930 which was only half completed when the developer went bankrupt.  The Elm Terrace Fitness Centred (opened in 1931 as an indoor market) covers the site of most of the cottages on the right except the last three, which are now used for commercial purposes”. ***

I have to say I do like the picture and more because we can identify pretty much everyone who lived here during the early 20th century using electoral registers and the census returns.

And here I must pay tribute to Tricia, who sent over the picture and did much of the research on Margaret Pocknall from which I know she was a dress maker, born in Eltham in 1877, and her family moved around Eltham and settled just round the corner in Southend Road in Elm Villas.

But I will close with one simple observation and that  even back then, a gable end invited the idle to chalk on the wall.

To which Matt K Minch went one better and posted this picture with the comment, "'Astel' I think is the remnants of the sign that said Hardcastles, this being what became of the 3 houses that survived there."

And that really is it, with thanks to Matt and Tricia who did all the research.
Location; Eltham

Picture; Elm Terrace, courtesy of Tricia Leslie, and Elm Terrace from the collection of Matt K Minch, date unknown

*Gregory, R.R.C. The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909, page 286

**ibid, Gregory, R.R.C., page 287

***Kennet, John, Eltham a Pictorial History, 1995 image 84

Who will mourn ....B&Q ...... The Hard Rock ...... and that Bowling Alley?

So, thank you Andy Robertson.

Over the last few weeks with your trusty camera,

You have recorded the demise of that place

On Great Stone Road which lives in the memory

Of D.I.Y. enthusiasts, music fans and Ten Pin Bowlers.

I knew you as B&Q, but spotted the Hard Rock Pylon

From the train, while many fondly talked of first dates 

Amongst the bowling alleys.

Even now you have left a heap of debate,

From those who think the site will be flats,

To those who rail against a spill off car park

Or a giant Korean sushi and burger bar

But I can reveal that no plans have been lodged

At Trafford Planning Portal

And so, you remain a mystery, wrapped in an enigma

Of an open space.

Location, Great Stone Road

Pictures;   a mystery, wrapped in an enigma of an open space, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson