Breaking News …… more on the mystery of the lost Chorlton Alton Towers

Yesterday I was exploring the strange story of Alton Towers which stood on a large plot of land beside St Clements Church.*

The site of Alton Towers, Edge Lane, 2022

I can date it to 1879 and track the owner and the tenants over the next 40 years 

It was a grand ten roomed house with greenhouses set in a large garden with an accompanying parcel of land with trees and pathways.

But sometime after 1915 it disappears from the historical record and by 1933 the house is gone and a tennis court occupied one corner of the land. 

Alton Towers, 1907

Dave King remembers being a member of the club and playing in the courts in the 1970s.

The house has rather entered Chorlton mythology with a vague assertion that there was a fire and that the Council appropriated the land.

And today thanks to Tony Goulding who writes for the blog and who digs deep into the Township’s past l can add more.

Having become interested in the story Tony found two newspaper accounts. 

One refers to a tragedy in the grounds of the house in 1915 when a young boy playing in the grounds of Alton Towers fell from a tree in a “private garden”, and “Lockjaw supervened on the injuries and he died from that cause”.**

Fatal Trespass, 1915

My NHS site tells me that lockjaw is now referred to as “Tetanus [which]  is a serious, life-threatening condition caused by bacteria getting into a wound. It's rare in the UK because the tetanus vaccine has been part of the routine vaccination schedule for many years”.***

Not so of course a century.

It is a sad story but does help with the mystery of the house which might still have been there.

We know according to another newspaper account found by Tony that it had been put up for auction two years earlier on October 23rd, 1913.

Up for auction, 1913

The sale notice refers to “The Excellent Freehold Detached Residence known as ‘Alton Towers’ Edge Lane, Chorlton.”

And goes on “The site contains 3,230 square yards or thereabouts, and is subject along with an adjoining plot of land containing 4, 370 square yards or thereabouts to a perpetual yearly rent charge of £63”.***

So, we now know a tad more about that mystery house, and no doubt more will emerge.

And it did because, just a few hours after the story went live, Tony Goulding added the comment, "There is also an advertisement in the Manchester Evening News of 27th February 1914 for the sale by private contract of bricks, slates, and other assorted building materials for a number of addresses including Alton Towers, Edge Lane. 

Sad end ..... that house reduced to builder's items, 1914

It is likely that these items were the product of the demolition (actual or proposed) by the seller, G.H. Jones, Blackfriars Road, Salford".

And not to be out classed I went looking for the advert and Found it umpteen times from mid February through to the end of March 1914.

Location; Edge Lane

Picture; the site of Alton Towers, 2022, courtesy of Google maps, in 1907 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1907, two newspaper accounts, 1913 & 1915,  courtesy of Tony Goulding, and Bricks etc, Manchester Guardian, February 17th, 1914

*Who Stole Alton Towers? https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2024/02/who-stole-alton-towers.html

***Tetanus, NHS, https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tetanus/

****To be sold by Auction, Manchester Evening News October 18th, 1913