How easy it is to lose our history …. the lost bit of Keppel Road

The lost bit does not rank high in the story of the past.

Keppel Road, 2012

But it is one of those little lessons in how we take the familiar for granted until it is gone, and then puzzle over what was lost.

So, I am on Keppel Road looking at a bit of new build which went up around 2012.

I can remember encountering it being built, and vaguely wondering what had been there before.

And then as you do forgot about it.

Until today when with the rain falling out of the sky like stair rods, and no inclination to go anywhere, I tried to solve the mystery.

Keppel Road, 2008

Google maps offered up the answer, presenting me an image from 2008 which showed that the site had been shared by a single-story building running at right angles to the road, and what I guess was a later addition.  

This later addition was a small stand-alone brick box which back then was an estate agent.

Both buildings show up on the OS map for 1933, but two decades earlier in 1907 there is another building with a slightly different footprint on the site, which may have been a structure which encompassed both the estate agents and its neighbour.

That said by 1911 a Mr. Frank Whiteley is listed at number 1 Keppel Road and Parish Brothers, Decorators at number three.

Keppel Road, 2022

Mr Whiteley was a butcher with a shop on the corner of Keppel and Wilbraham Road, and so I wonder if part of the building belonged to him and the rest to the Parish Brothers which is supported by the presence of both in the same spot in 1909. 

Go back six years a Mrs Annie Maud Andrew, dress maker is at no. 1 and Alfred Whitaker at number 3.

Step back to 1900 and the building is listed as a stable… I know the owner and the occupier which will be fun to follow up.

Leaving someone to question whether the structures in 2008 look old enough to have been the originals.

So, there you are.  One of those silly bits of historical research which almost allows you to connect the dots and get an answer after a confusing ramble through Chorlton’s past.

Location; Chorlton Road

Pictures, Keppel Road, 2008. 2012, 2022, courtesy of Goggle Maps