In the midst of plenty ........ two children sleeping rough “one under a Salford Railway arch and the other below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry”

It still beggars belief that in a city some called the “second city of the Empire,” which proudly displayed its trade links to the world in its brand new Town Hall and would ambitiously build its own route to the sea children slept rough on the streets,  making a pitiful living selling matches, and shoe laces later in to the night.

First Shelter, Quay Street, 1870

But of course it happened and in response to the stories of children sleeping under a Salford Railway arch and another below an old staircase in a Deansgate entry, the Night Refuge for Homeless Boys opened its doors.

Its full title was “The Boys’ Refuge and Industrial Brigade” and on January 4 1870 if offered a handful of boys found on the streets of the twin cities, a bed and breakfast, before turning them out on to the streets again.

Within a decade the organisers had expanded into a  ranges of activities designed to help young people and a full half century later could point to a whole series of achievements, from rescuing children  off the streets to residential and vocational homes,  seaside holidays, and involvement both in the courts and in legislation to protect young people.

Along the way it also migrated some young people to Canada.

But it began with that one building.

It was on Quay Street off Deansgate and a quarter of century later Mr Shaw one of the prime movers in the shelter reflected on those early days.

“In a dark little room on the ground floor of the house was a living room where meals were served.  A front collar was a living-room by day and a school and band room at night.  The back cellar, described as being dark and damp as a cavern, was made to serve the purpose of a bathroom and lavatory .  

The sleeping accommodation was almost amusingly primitive. 

It took the shape of hammocks hung out round the upper room from strong hooks in the wall, each hammock having two iron legs which fitted into sockets in the floor.    [and] when the boys jumped into bed ‘with a burst’ away went the held fasts and sockets and even a portion of the wall too, and that a dusty heap in the middle of the floor was generally the rest.

Mr Shaw and a group of Boys, 1883

In the year 1870 there were some forty inmates of the Refuge.  Today nearly 500 boys and girls are being cared for and trained within the institution to a life of usefulness, while according to the last report issued in 1894 , not less than 2,595 children come more or less under the influence of the Society and its branches in the course of 12 months.”*

Those involved were motivated by strong religious convictions, but also by that simple and obvious response that not only was the plight of destitute and neglected children and an abomination but “while we leave the little children practically uncared for we shall never want for a fully supply of candidates for our reformatories, workhouses and goals.”

The building had a short life and the organisation relocated to Strangeways but the scale of the problem was such that one refuge was not enough.

That lack of provision was highlighted “in the winter months of 1871 when three boys applied at the Refuge looking for shelter.

Major Street Shelter, 1905

As the home was already full, they had to be turned away. Seeking warmth and shelter and being unable to afford three pence to stay in a lodging house for the night they had wandered up to the brickfields of Cheetham.

A few days later a newspaper reported on the demise of a young boy who had been burned to death at one of the brick kilns in the neighbourhood. This boy was one of the three who had, had to be turned away much to the consternation of the committee.

It was this incident that convinced the charity that they needed another building in which to receive any child in need of help, whatever the hour and this led to the opening of another on Major Street.

"Open all day and all night children in need of shelter could be brought and receive food and a bed for the night, whilst their individual circumstances were investigated. It ensured that no child requesting aid would ever be turned away again.”



Location; Manchester & Salford

Pictures; the first refuge opened in 1870 and a group of young boys from the charity in 1883, and the Major Street Shelter 1905 courtesy of the Together Trust, https://www.togethertrust.org.uk/

* The Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges A quarter of a century’s progress, Manchester Guardian, January 4 1895

**A new book on the Together Trust, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

Snaps of Chorlton nu 17.............. outside Mr England’s shop by Chorlton Green

Now this is the last of the short series taken from the collection of Paul England.

Over the last few days I have been featuring some of his family photographs which were taken in the 1960s

And I am finishing with two which in the way are the most personal

They speak for themselves but perhaps just need me to add that the first is Paul’s dad and the second is Paul.

They were taken outside the family shop on St Clements Road and point to the importance of the family snap, which in its way is a far more useful piece of photographic history than the carefully composed picture made by the professional.


Picture, shopping in Chorlton in the 1960s, from the collection of Paul England

Sunrise Greenwich, 1904

The second of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Sunrise, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunrise, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

The dog catcher …. forgotten friends ….and icy windows

It is one of those bittersweet things about getting old that random memories flood in without warning.

Icy windows, 2024

On any one day they can be a mix of thoughts from the ice that formed on the inside of windows to half forgotten friends or just how things were done in the olden days.

I’m not unique in this, only with 75 years behind the clock there are more of those memories and heaps of time for them to settle and zip off in different directions.

Today it was the ice, which at 7am streaked across inside of one of our double-glazed window units.

And now just a little after 9, those icy patterns have all but gone.  But not so sixty years ago when the ice formed on the inside of the glass and stayed all day and sometimes into the next.

But back then we didn’t have central heating and so one of Dad’s last jobs of the night was to light the hurricane lamps and place them in the roof space to raise the temperature on very cold nights.

A task which was mirrored by his other nightly one of filling five hot water bottles and placing them in our beds before we retired.

Yesterday it was the dog walkers passing the house of which, here in Chorlton there are many.  Occasionally the owner will let the pet off the lead and that always reminds me of the stray dogs that wandered our streets when I was a kid.  I suspect some had just got out when the door had been left open, but others will have been put out for the day to wander and prowl the neighbourhood, always returning late in the day.

The not stray dog, Bagel, 1980

Providing they were not captured by the dog catcher who also travelled the same streets.

Not that I ever saw a dog catcher it was just one of those folk stories that I was brought up with, which began with mum muttering about the stray dog in the street, followed up by mention of Battersea Dog’s Home and a check on our own dog.

In rural areas in the 19th century stray animals were put in the pinfold.  Here in Chorlton ours was beside the village green and owners of these itinerant animals would be fined while those that were never collected might be sold off.

So it was with the farmer Mary White who found a brown pony in the September of 1850.  She farmed 52 acres across the township and lived by the green not far from the pinfold.  Once she had ascertained that no one in the township owned the pony she went to the expense of advertising in the Manchester Guardian that “the owner may have it on giving a description and paying expenses.  If not owned in fourteen days, it will be sold to pay expenses.” 

Memories of a cattle market, 1954

All of which just leaves the indulgent and very personal reflections on the legion of acquaintances, former girlfriends and work colleagues that we all have.

In my case I can recall the names of all the girl friends I dated and remember their faces, less so old school companions and sadly many of those I worked with comeback as an image or half-forgotten name.

A few still sit in the phone list and we talk or what’s app, but others like Peter Broom, Michael Titchner and Dribble are lost, although in the case of Dribble I still see him the day he fell fully clothed into the pool after a swimming lesson when we were first years in Secondary Modern.  His real name was Paul Driver, but from that moment till he left four years later he was always “Dribble”.

I have no idea what happened to any of them and more sadly to John Cox and Jimmy O’ Donnel who I hung around with during our junior school years.  Jimmy, I know was living in the west country at the turn of the century, but the flurry of telephone conversations withered.

So, a ramble and perhaps not as focused a history blog, but there you are. 

Location; 75 years of my past

Pictures; window with ice, November 2024, and the not stray dog, December 1980, Derby cattle market, June 1954

* Manchester Guardian, September 25 1850

Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870 ......... part 3 ........testing the story of dark secrets and awful tragedies in Wood Street

Now it is very easy to fall into the trap of using newspaper reports to draw a picture of the past.

And so far that is what I have done in the new series on walking the streets of Manchester in 1870.

As everyone knows, just yards from the broad and affluent main thoroughfares of the city, was another world where unless you were very poor you dared not venture.

Wood Street was one of those.

It was and is a narrow street off Deansgate and is best known for the Wood Street Mission which sought to provide basic support for the very poor.

The charity was established in 1869 and is still going today.

Its activities included running a soup kitchen, a rescue society and home for neglected boys, and a night shelter for the homeless.  It handed over thousands of clogs and items of clothing each year, as well as hundreds of toys at Christmas.

Around the Mission poverty not only busied its self but was pretty much what defined the street, and those newspaper reports dug deep into the squalor and human misery.

There were five articles published by the Manchester Guardian from February to March 1870 and they ranged over the back streets of Deansgate, across to Angel Meadow and up Market Street and down to London Road.**

The descriptions of awful living conditions, drunkenness and prostitution are as shocking to day as they were nearly 150 years ago.

And the reports are essential reading for those wanting to know more about living conditions amongst the very poor and in particular as a backdrop to the growing movement to care for the legion of abandoned, destitute and abused children.

But nothing should be taken at face value, which meant trawling the records to test how far the vivid descriptions matched reality.

The starting point as ever were the street directories which list householders and with names you can search the census returns to find the families which in turn will offer up information on occupations, the numbers of people living in each house and the density of housing.

Wood Street, 1849

And that data can be matched with maps of the area, making it possible to follow our journalist along Wood Street.

Not that it is that simple, because in 1870 the entire residents of Wood Street were not worthy of inclusion in the street directory which meant looking instead for the nearest properties on Deansgate, and using the name of the householder to visit the census return for the area.

43-49 Wood Street, 1903

Happily it paid off and just over half of the twenty pages of the particular census return were for Wood Street.  In total there were 276 people living in forty four properties, many of which were in closed courts off Wood Street and accessed by dark narrow passages.***

Some of the courts had names like Smith’s Court, Bradley Court and Pilkington’s while others didn’t even rate a name.

Most of the properties were back to back and consisted of just two rooms and will have been in various states of repair.

And at random I fastened on the Ellis family who lived at number 3 Robinson’s Court which was at the western end of Wood Street hard by a Hide and Skin Yard.

The court was accessed through one of those narrow passages off Wood Street and in turn led off to another and unnamed court.

Robinson's Court, 1849

Robinson’s Court would have been dark, admitting little sunshine or fresh air and its occupants would have had daily to cope with the smell of the Hide and Skin Yard, just yards away.

Mr Thomas Ellis was a stone mason’s labourer, aged 33 from Manchester.

His wife Mary had been born in Dublin and was a silk winder.

Together with their four children they occupied the two rooms which made up number 3.

No photographs exist of their home but by exploring the rate books we know that they paid one shilling a week and that their landlord was John Highams who owned all six properties in the court.

33 & 35  Wood Street, 1903

A further search of the rate books will reveal the extent of Mr Higham’s property portfolio and by finding out just how much Mr Ellis earned it should be possible to judge how significant that shilling was to the family budget.

What is interesting about Wood Street is the number of lodging houses which according to the article were at the bottom end of the market with overcrowding being the norm and some verging on “vice shops.”****

I think it may be impossible now to ascertain how accurate was the journalist’s observation of “drunken women standing about the doorway, or coming in with some drunken man whom the gin shops of Deansgate have half maddened.”****

But I suspect the discovery of a group of women in another house is all too true.  “On the knees of the centre figure of this strange group lies a little month-old baby, dying-the last of twins.  It is miserably thin and the yellow skin shows the articulation of its frame.... the eyelids are drawn close down, and a long bony arm weakly and painfully raises itself.”****

One of the courts off Wood Street, 1903

We will never know the identity of any of the group or the final fate of the child, but a few days later the mother had taken refuge in the most debased of lodging houses.

Today Wood Street is still narrow, the Mission building is still there but as for the rest it has long ago vanished.

Location; Manchester, 1870







Pictures; Wood Street, 2007, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, numbers 43-49, 1904, m05386,numbers 33 &35, m05389, backs of numbers 33 & 35 m05391, A Bradburn courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and Wood Street, 1849, from Manchester & Salford OS, Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Walking Manchester in 1870

**In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3 1870

***Wood Street, from the 1871 census, Enu 2, 9-20, Deansgate, St Mary’s

****In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3 1870

Snaps of Chorlton No 10, farming some where in Chorlton

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

This is one of my favourite pictures in the collection and it is special for a number of reasons.

First it was lent to me by my friend Allan Brown who had lived here around the village green for his entire life and the seated couple are his grandmother and great grandfather which take his link with the township back into the 19th century.

But it is also because it is one of the few photographs of Chorlton which show people still working the land.

I don’t have a date or a location but we may be in the last quarter of the 19th century somewhere in Chorlton but it featured in my book The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*


Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

Greenwich Park, and a moment a full 53 years ago .......... nu 2 from the river

It will be a full 53 years ago but the memory of that walk through Greenwich Park on a Saturday in September 1971 has never left me.

I was in my second year at Manchester Poly and the pull of Well Hall and the family were still strong and so
I found myself back home with three friends.

Lois was from Weston and Mike and John from Leeds and we travelled down from Manchester in John’s van on the Friday night.

Even now I have to say I haven’t forgotten the kindness of David Hatch who agreed to put Lois, Mike and John up on his floor.

It was a brief stay and most of it is a blur except for the walk from the gates on the Blackheath side through the park to Wolf’s statue, the observatory and that view down to the river.

At any time of the year that short stroll is pretty good but in late autumn it is magic.  The leaves are on the turn and the bright sunlight can still surprise you with its degree of warmth and the way it brings out the colours all around you.

Now we never made it across the river but had we I am sure we would have been rewarded with a view like this.


All of which just leaves me to reflect on the postcard which was marketed in the USA and carried the imprint of the American YMCA of which there must be a story, but not for now.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Greenwich Park, 1905 from the series Greenwich, marketed in 1911-12 by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

Strange goings on …… at Beech Road

Early morning can throw up surprises.

The sun was up and offered an opportunity for one of those “arty” images of a reflection of our house in the upstairs window of next door.

All was well until the cloud drifted across the scene slowly obliterating everything.

Now, I have friends who are novelists and who will be able to weave the arrival of that cloud of mist into a dark, mysterious tale which conjures up much from Mary Shelley, Edgar Alan Poe, and Dickens.

Me …. Well I will just report that at the moment I took the first picture, the boiler fired and the exhaust fumes hit the cold air and continued for a while.

And the rest as they say is a slow moving wisp of a thing.

Which reminds me of countless B movie Science Fiction where clouds drift in from the sea bringing death, destruction, and more than a few scenes of screams and disappearing walk on actors.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; That cloud, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870 ......... part 2 ........Deansgate and Davenport’ Court "where scarcely a night passes but some robbery is committed”

Now I have to say the stretch of Deansgate from St Mary’s Gate down to Victoria Street Bridge is dismal.

Looking up Deansgate from Victoria Bridge Street, 1988

It starts with that Italian restaurant but pretty quickly becomes just a wall behind which rises that sloping walkway which now goes nowhere.

And the end of that dismal stretch is just the entrance to a car park.   All very different from the impressive Grosvenor Hotel and the Grosvenor Buildings which occupied the same spot but were demolished in 1972.

A full century earlier and the same site was home to the notorious Davenport Court where according to the Manchester Guardian “scarcely a night passes but some robbery is committed ........ and almost under the shadow of the Cathedral tower.”*

The Grosvenor Hotel, 1959

The court was one of those enclosed ones and “entered only by a narrow passage some four or five feet wide.

At the end of this are two houses, used for the most vicious of all trades, and of course registered as common lodging house.”

It was “well known in the police courts and goal.  

Yet for all these houses are still continued on the register as being well ordered, and go on nightly adding to the long calendar of crime and filling the lock wards of our hospitals.” 

Lock hospitals specialized in treating sexually transmitted diseases,

Ours had opened in 1819 and was replaced a by newer one which opened in 1874 off Liverpool Road, on the corner of Duke Street and Bridgewater Street, and while it postdates the Manchester Guardian description it is worth noting that a decade later it was so strapped for cash that “its walls still remain unpainted.”

But according to Mr Lowndes its “doors are always open in the first instance to anyone suffering from the disease for which it treats, but in order to prevent abuse, and to reserve its benefits for the most deserving, no patient is admitted a second time.”**

One wonders where some of those who needed its services a second time went, not that the journalist from the Manchester Guardian.

Davenport Court, 1849

Instead he continued to paint a vivid if depressing picture of life in Davenport Court, referring to one resident “seated by the kitchen fire of one of these houses who was a low browed short haired man, whose muscles and ferocity seemed well matched and who boasted that he ‘never did a day’s work this many a year, and should consider himself a fool,” with a very appropriate adjective ‘if he did.’”

And there was plenty of evidence of violent behaviour and criminal acts upon those who might stray into the court.  Such victims could not expect any help even though they might cry out and were unlikely to catch their assailant who being familiar with the court could vanish in an instant and be out on Deansgate mingling with passersby.

Added to which “at the corner of the entry. Keeping guard over it is a public house filled full to overflowing with wholly drunken men and semi-drunken women, and hard working labourers who are spending on prostitutes hard-earned money for want of which their wives and children are starving at home. 

Davenport Court and surrounding area, 1849

The whistle which gives token of the approach of suspicious-looking strangers, and the intense silence which succeeds it, indicate alike the commerce and the conversation carried on there.

The intruding and unwelcome visitor is greeted with muttered curses and regarded with furtive looks; he may be a ‘plain-clothes man’ taking stock, and too many know what that means to make his advent welcome.”

The pub was the Llangollen Castle which stood directly north of the court and the area was dominted by textile mills, metal working plant and timber yard.


Of course it may well be that our journalist for all sorts of reasons may have over egged the situation, but I doubt it for there are plenty of similar accounts.

That said I shall away and away and trawl the records for any reference to unruly behaviour in the pub and the court.

Victoria Street, 1988

Location; Deansgate

Coming soon; dark secrets and tragedies in Wood Street






Pictures; Victoria Street, 1988, E. Krieger, m 05447, Grosvenor Hotel and the Grosvenor Buildings, L. Kaye, 1959, m49730, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  and Davenport Court, 1849, from Manchester & Salford OS, Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3, 1870

**Lock Hospitals and Lock Wards in General Hospitals, Frederick W. Lowndes, 1882, pages 12-14

Down on Maple Avenue with more rare pictures

This is another of those wonderful images from Ray Jones whose family owned one of the houses on Maple Avenue for over a century, spanning the old Queen’s Jubilee, two world wars, and much else.

It was taken by Ray’s grandfather and dates from the 1920s.
That said I bet there will be someone out there who is an expert on such vehicles and can offer up the make, the date and more than a bit of its history.

In the same way there will be someone else who will follow up on the number plate and go to those sites which explain how the letters and numbers can date the car.

But for now I shall just thank Ray and make that obvious remark that there would have been very little other traffic parked up on that sunny day on Maple Avenue.

All of which is in direct contrast to today and leads me to wonder just when the transition happened.

Look at photographs from the 1960s and even early 70's and many roads will still be relatively empty and that I think highlights the need for more pictures from those middling decades.

The collection is full of images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when commercial photographers plied their trade selling to local residents as well as the picture postcard companies.

But from the 1960s as the trade in picture postcards went into decline the numbers of photographs has also diminished.

I know they will be out there, mostly as snaps which now sit in family albums or at the bottom of the sock cupboard and bringing them out into the light would advance our knowledge of the area.

So that’s the appeal done, leaving me just to thank Ray and say I know exactly which house on Maple Avenue this is, but until I approach the owners it seems unfair to say more.

Instead I will close with a comment from Ray who thinks "the the motor is a BSA cyclecar but I'm not certain."

Location; Maple Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, a car, two kids, and auntie on Maple Avenue, circa 1920s, © Ray Jones

At Greenwich Hospital in 1902

An occasional series featuring the postcards of Tuck & Sons and images of Greenwich at the very beginning of the 20th century.

Now I have rather neglected Greenwich and yet it was and is one of my favourite places.

I worked for a while at a camping shop on the road into Greenwich and spent three summer vacations working at a food factory on the river just minutes away from the Cutty Sark Park, which in turn was a place I remember fondly.

And of these it will be those warm summer evenings sat on the low wall opposite the pub drinking and chatting with friends and listening to the sound the barges made as they banged together in the wake of a passing ship.

This is the Hospital from a card dated 1902

And it is the detail that draws you in.

So for me as much as I am impressed by the buildings it is the humble working barges that I find fascinating.

Not of course that I am going to to romanticise working on the river.  It was hard dangerous and at times very unpleasant.

Anyone who has been caught in a chill wind blowing off the river in the depths of winter will know what I mean.

Picture; Greenwich Hospital,in the series, London, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Walking the streets of Manchester in 1870 ......... of privies closed courts and foul passages..... Ludgate Street

Now Ludgate Street which runs from Rochdale Road into Angel Meadow should have fared better.

New gates, 1908, a closed court

There are no images of the place in the City collection, it warrants only one entry in a street directory and got a pretty poor press from the Manchester Guardian back in 1870.

You can still walk down it today.  It is one of the narrower streets in the city and is fronted by a mix of tall residential properties, and until recently was home to a warehouse, car park, and some open land.

And as such is not over remarkable but back in 1870 it attracted the attention of the Manchester Guardian and appeared as No. 3 of their series “In the Slums.”*

Ludgate Street, 1851

“Ludgate-street is a principal thoroughfare leading from Rochdale Road into Angel Meadow.

From each side of this street branch off many courts, each with its open gutter down the centre; and as the houses are built back to back, forming the front street and back yard at the same time.

In each of these courts we find privies and ashpits very dilapidated and dirty, and in many cases built over with rooms.

In Church court the privies open on to the yard or court, where boys and girls are playing about. ....... Foul passages past fouler places lead from these courts and streets, passages so narrow that it is impossible to avoid contact with that which decency would shun, but which is utterly unheeded by those who dwell here, such is the debasing effect of constantly living in such places.

Back Simpson –street, Marshall’s Court and many other places we have visited could be adduced to show how horrible this district is, but it is needless to reiterate facts.  In Factory Court there is one lodging-house registered for 20 beds. And 20 beds means 40 persons and for these 40 persons there are one privy and one ashpit, and these are partially destroyed by the fall of an adjacent wall.

Church Court off Ludgate Street, 1851

In Joinery-street there is a court with a foul privy, without a door, and full ashpit within five feet of the living room; and in a court off Brabham-street one privy, without a seat or door and in such a state that it cannot be approached, is the sole provision for seven houses.”

Nor was that quite all, because our intrepid journalist moved a little distance away to Newtown which he described as a suburb of Angel Meadow which had “plenty of open spaces, spaces which might act as lungs for the overcrowded district it adjoins and where a little fresh air might be found.”

Nearby in another building were “hundreds of cows’ feet waiting to be boiled and, and separated from them by a board only, a heap of bones of those which have preceded them."

44 Angel Street 1898 which backed on to Ludgate Street

Alas this was not to be because the area was full of piggeries.

Behind one street there were sixteen in a long block “without drainage or anything to carry away the filth; it soaks through and runs the amongst the soil till the place is offensive in the extreme for yards away."

Now I could go on but I won’t.  There were plenty of more pleasant places in the city which in the fullness of time will appear in our walks but for now that is it.

Next time; Deansgate and Davenport’s Court “where “scarcely a night passes but some robbery id committed ........ and almost under the shadow of the Cathedral tower.”

Location; Manchester in 1870

Pictures; New gates, 1908, m8316, Angel Street, 1900, m85543, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Ludgate Street in 1851 from Adshead map of Manchester, 1851, courtesy of Digital Archives Asscociation, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*In the Slums, Manchester Guardian, March 3, 1870

The Eltham we have lost, part 2........ The old lane by the National Schools, 1908

Another of those pictures of Eltham’s past which need no comment

This is the old lane by the National Schools as it was in 1908.  The lane is now Archery Road and 'One acre Allotments' was on the right.









Picture; the old lane,  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

A shopping list, a coal receipt and a little bit of how we lived in the winter of 1963

Now in an age of online shopping I still like the idea of making a list and going down to the shops but I have grown lazy and have reverted to that simple practice of the man with the van.

And today that was what arrived at 6.30 this morning courtesy of the latest supermarket to get into the business of delivering our groceries.

I resisted for a long time arguing the joy of getting out and meeting people and choosing for myself was a paramount adding that it was just another example of that creeping invasion of the internet into my life.

But historically of course the idea of the man with a van is not new, and if I had been from a certain class I might well have expected pretty much all of my food to have arrived at the door courtesy of the “boy and the cart” from the local tradesmen.

The only difference I suppose is that instead of sending the servant with the list or making a phone call today the order is placed by computer and of course the man in the van is equally likely to be a woman.

And as I stare at the itemised receipt I am reminded what a wonderful little bit of history this list is containing as it does not only a record of what we consume but the cost of everything from two bottles of Gavi, three of Pinot Grigio and assorted household products.

All of which neatly leads me to the shopping list made out by my old friend Marjorie Holmes in the winter of 1963 along with a receipt for two bags of coal delivered to the house by H.Hawkard, “Coal & Coke Merchant, Station Approach, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.”

Now such lists and receipts are the stuff of everyday life and most will be discarded pretty much straight away.

My father being a more canny person did tend to keep these records if only to make it easier to shop next time, which I guess is not unlike that tab on the online site which directs you to your favourites.

In the case of Marjorie few of her shopping lists have survived so I can’t say how typical this one was but it gives an idea of the cost of living back in 1963.

Moreover it indicates she was both a regular customer of the Co-op as the divi number at the top of the page testifies and that the order was delivered.

Back in 1963 we still had a Co-op on Beech Road and the coal merchants continued to operate from the Station approach after passenger trains ceased to rum from Chorlton into Central.

Of course there will be those who mutter this is small history, compared to the bigger picture which saw the Cuban Missile Crisis the year before, the assassination of President Kennedy in the November of 1963 and the slow decline in the popularity of the Conservative Government but this is my sort of history.

Pictures; shopping list circa November 1963 and coal receipt, November 1963, courtesy of Marjorie Holmes from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That house over the canal ……….. 41 Chorlton Street

Now, I am reunited with a building that has fascinated me for over 52 years.

The house in 2016

It is the one that stands on Chorlton Street and straddles the Rochdale Canal.

I always assumed it had once been the home of the lockkeeper, and alternated between thoughts of how cool it would be to live there, with the obvious ones of living directly over a stretch of water on a very busy city street.

Back in the early 1970s it seemed to be unoccupied and as the years went by I had less reason to go down that part of Chorlton Street and just forgot about the place.*

But now I see it appears to be occupied again, and after someone recently asked me about it, the fascination has returned, and with it a mystery.

It does not appear on street directories for the 19th or early 20th centuries, and in 1851 is clearly shown as two buildings, one of which is a warehouse and a place of business and the other residential.

The warehouse and house, 1851

That said a Mr. John Holroyd is listed in the Rate Books for 1863 occupying 41 and 43 Chorlton Street in a property owned by the Rochdale Canal Company.  

All of which was confirmed by a street directory for the same year which describes him as “Lock keeper”.

And as every researcher knows once you have a reference in the historical records, it all comes together.

So, the same Rate Books record the property belonging to the Rochdale Canal from 1847 through into the late 19th century but the census returns stubbornly refuse to record who lived in 41 and 43.

Just occasionally there is a break through and from 1871 through to 1895 and I know that Barton Manchester and his family were there.  

A decade earlier he had been working the canal boats as an assistant, and on the night of the census was with William Wignall and Mr. Wignall’s family on a 50 ton “flat” boat moored on the Dukes Canal.

The house, 1955

He married Elizabeth Baron in 1867 and four years later they were settled in the house over the water.  He described himself as as a waterman.  Ten years later is listed as a “Lock keeper” and he and Elizabeth had a young family with the eldest of the four children aged 7 down and the youngest just 1.

And there the family stay, until his death in 1895.  Elizabeth had died in 1890 and both are buried in Philips Park.** He left £502 and a family that were launched on careers which took them away from the waterways.  The eldest was a clerk to a solicitor, and by 1911 was a “Railway Traffic Regulator", while the others were in various skilled occupations.

In time I will search out their lives, but for now I wll close with what little more I know of Mr. Manchester.  I doubt we will find a reference to his birth or any earlier historical records before 1861.

I know that when he married Elizabeth he was illiterate, giving his mark beside the signature of his wife.  

But there is a clue to that earlier life, and that comes from his first name, which is replicated by another “waterman” who in 1861 was plying another canal, working a boat with his father and family.  He too was called Barton, and I wonder if there is any connection with the aqueduct that carried the Duke’s Canal over the river Irwell at Barton -Upon-Irwell.

The house and canal, 2016

Fanciful perhaps, but possible.

Leaving me just book time to explore the lives of Thomas and Mary Holroyd, Willam Diamond, and Alexander Heap all of whom at some point resided in that house over the canal on Chorlton Street.

To which I can now add this from Hayley Flynn, "I thought you might like some info I found on the house on Chorlton Street over the canal. 

I'm writing a little bit about it at the moment and noticed you'd also been curious over the years - love the occupants you tracked down - Barton Manchester! 

This is the recent update I've written in my article: 

It seems that the Canals and Rivers Trust were the owners of the house until it was sold to an individual, Michael Maybin, in the early 2000s. Maybin continued to live in his flat in Hulme, presumably renting the property out. He died in 2019, evidenced by a police appeal to locate his next of kin; since then the house has remained occupied.

When you look on google maps it's after 2019 that the front of the house has physical changes too, which I guess would signal new occupants but I've not found any new documents relating to the owners so maybe it's still part of his estate".

Location, Manchester

Pictures; 41 Chorlton Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  British Waterways narrow boats, proceeding to Hassall's Warehouse, Ducie Street, leaving Chorlton Street Lock, 1955, m54248, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and 41 &43 Chorlton Street, 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester 1851 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Little David Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_14.html

**Philips Park Cemetery, Plot FNon Conformist 426 

Snaps of Chorlton ............ nu 13 the Horse and Jockey

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

Now along with churches pubs must be one of the most popular topics for the snapper.

Sadly the exercise rarely extends to the inside so while there are plenty of the outside of our pubs inns and hotels few of the interior have survived if they were ever taken at all.

So here is another pub exterior.

In this case of the Horse and Jockey sometime in the 1960s 0r 70s.

The pub sent me the picture and I often wonder who took it.

Picture; the Horse & Jockey circa 1960s-70 courtesy of the Horse and Jockey

Discovering Eltham

Cover of the new edition 2000

I am back in Eltham where I grew up in the 1960s on the Progress Estate.

They say you should never go back to the places of your childhood and there is something in that.

Either they look smaller and are just that bit different or whole landscapes have so altered that you begin to question if your memory is serving you well.

Now my bit of Well Hall looks much the same but they have moved the station built a motorway and many of my favourite haunts in the High Street have changed.

All of which is a lead in to Discover Eltham by Darrell Sprugeon.*

It is a “comprehensive guide to Eltham, New Eltham, Mottingham, Kidbrooke and Shooters Hill.”  So it pretty much covers everywhere I went as a child and certainly everywhere I would want to take my own grown children who while they are all Mancunians have a soft spot for where dad lived.

Mr Spurgeon sets out to offer his reader a mix of history, and places to see which are all wrapped up in a series of walks “but only where places of interest are concentrated within an area which makes walking practicable and interesting.”

Tudor Barn, Well Hall, 16th century

So “beside the famous buildings of royal Eltham, the area covered includes Wren’ great almshouse of Morden College, the extraordinary Sevendroog Castle, set amongst the ancient woodland of Shooters Hill, the Tudor remains of Well Hall, many interesting Victorian churches and two striking churches of the 1930s, two remarkable housing estates of the 20th century; sites of industrial archaeology, interesting pubs; many of which remain rural in character, and much more.”

And there is much I didn’t know. So despite living close to the church of St Barnabas on Rochester Way, I had no idea that this red brick Victorian church was originally the chapel of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Woolwich.  It was “built in 1859 and dismantled and re-erected brick by brick on its present site in 1933.”

Nor did I know of the existence of three streams which flow through Kidbrook and feed into  the Quaggy River.  Of course the clue is in the name Kidbrook, which is clearly derived from the Upper, Mid and Lower Kidbrooks.

Now water courses are a particular interest of mine.  Most today are buried underground all but forgotten but they were vital to our rural communities providing water and acting as boundary markers.

Progress Estate, Ross Way, 1915

I have to own up that it is the Eltham walks which fascinate me most.

And here there is plenty to read and see because Mr Spurgeon includes a selection of photographs along with the text and maps.

The first edition came out in 1992 and a second much revised eight years later.  I have both in front of me.  

The earlier version I bought on Amazon and the later one has come courtesy of the author.

And as a historian what I finds particularly interesting are the changes to the area in that eight years. All of which makes the book a fascinating chronicle of how Eltham has developed.

I rather think that I shall take both with me on some of the walks, thereby getting an insight into the Eltham of 1992, 2000 and of course today.

Pictures; courtesy of Darrell Spurgeon

 *Spurgeon, Darrell, Discover Eltham and its Environ, Greenwich Guide Books, 1992, revised and updated  2000

Posters from the collection

Nothing more than a poster

Pictures; posters from a collection, 1970-1993

Two pictures …. a memory …… and a lost landscape

 Memories fade and eventually are lost and so these two images of Manchester on August 1st, 1957, are a powerful reminder of what the city was once like.

Two for one, a panorama of destruction, 1957

Both pictures were taken from the old BBC Building in Piccadilly and look out across the Gardens towards the Town Hall and the business sector.

Looking towards Portland Street, 1957

I would arrive just twelve years later, and Manchester had already shed many of those temporary car parks which were former bomb sites, replacing them with new builds of concrete and glass.

And while I was born and grew up in London, I can remember similar scenes.  

As kids we played on bomb sites and occasionally came across lost treasures pulled from the ground. 

Those open spaces would soon be home to cars and later still towering blocks of offices.

All of which makes me think my generation will be the last to remember that time when the last war transformed our cities and towns leaving acres of prime development sites.

But also, had created those gaps between houses where a single bomb had obliterated a home. In some cases, giant timbers were still in place shoring up the properties on either side, or the remaining houses had been given a skim of cement.

And so back to the two pictures.  

Piccadilly Gardens, the bus terminus and the future  hotel site, 1957

It is fascinating now to view the sheer scale of the devastation in just one part of the City and likewise what appears to be the random nature of the bombing, and what survived.

I won’t be alone in seeing pictures published in the early 1970s of the bits of Back Piccadilly ablaze from end to end which back in 1940 the censors deemed likely to undermine morale.

Now some I know will focus on the soot clad surviving buildings or wax lyrically about the former Piccadilly Gardens which is OK but detracts from pondering on the scale of the war damage, and the relative speed of the rebuild.  Added to which there is that very personal elephant in the room which for me is that simple observation that if you can remember such scenes, you are indeed very old.

Ah well such is the dichotomy from being a baby boomer with one foot in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the exciting and changing times of the decade to come.

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, 1959

Pictures; Piccadilly from the BBC Building, August 1st, 1957, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass