When a heap of Chorlton’s history arrives on the doorstep …. thank you Dave King

Now, I am always on the lookout for new stories about our past.

A bit of Manchester's heritage, 1974

Sometimes they come out of diligent research from dusty archives and sometimes through the generosity of people who like me collect stuff.

Over the years it has been everything from photographs, letters and diaries, as well as stories handed down through families.

And yesterday Dave King dropped off a wonderful portfolio of maps pictures and other things.

Dave like me loves maps and here in the portfolio were a selection of OS maps from the 1950s and 1970s with a few from the turn of the last century.

Most relate to Chorlton, with a sideways look at Whalley Range, Firswood, Stretford and Wythenshawe.

Along with these were presentation folders from the Manchester Evening News and the City Council on some of the historic landmarks in the city.  They date from 1974 and ’75 and include some fine line drawings of buildings, which in the case of the Shambles in its Arndale setting and Albert Square have themselves become history.

Beech Road before our house, 1908

But it is the maps that have drawn me in, particularly those dating to the 1970s which fill a gap in my collection.

And as you do, I first turned to Beech Road which confirmed what I thought that the bowling green on the Rec was still there in 1974, while I can now date the former police station in the old tram terminus on Barlow Moor Road to 1955.

From there it was just a skip and a hop to the site of the now doomed Chorlton Precinct and the row of semidetached properties which occupied the spot.

In 1955 those that ran along Manchester Road and Barlow Moor Road were set in large gardens, and three were designated as “surgeries”, while what is at present the service way into the rear of the precinct from the car park was originally a road running off Manchester Road and connecting with that passageway between Yara and Costa Coffee.

Before the Precinct, 1955

This last revelation my not be in the same league as the discovery of the lost resting place of King Richard III, or the Cabinet Papers for the Miner’s Strike, but they are a little bit of our history.

And if nothing else offer up an insight into how the developers back in the early 1970s used the existing road network in the creation of the Precinct.

Leaving me just to dig out the OS map for 1974 with its detail of the Precinct’s footprint ready for when it demolition and replacement makes it just another bit of our past.

Location; Chorlton and Manchester

Pictures; detail of the OS map for Manchester and Salford, 1908 and 1955 and the cover of Make the Most of Manchester’s Heritage, Manchester Evening News, 1974, from the collection of Dave King