When we had a piano shop on Beech Road

Sometimes a picture captures a moment which with hindsight allows you to see that things were just about to change.

 Here is another of those photographs taken by Tom McGrath in the middle 1980s.

I don’t suppose any of us could have realized that as we walked past the old closed up off license that within a couple of years two out of these three shops would be part of the transformation of Beech Road.

For as long as I can remember Muriel and Richard had run the green grocers in the centre of the parade.  On one side had been the off license which had sold bottled beer since the early years of the 20th century, while on the other the shop had been many things, including in the 50s a grocery store and by the time I washed up here was selling pianos.

But all of that was about to change and Tom’s pictures captures that point of change.

The off license which had struggled on into the 1980s became the Italian deli while the piano shop became a cafe before becoming a series of wine bars and growing its extension.

Only Richard and Muriel’s stayed the course, but were about to have a new and very impressive sign put above the door announcing that they were the Purveyors of fine fruit and vegetables, which they were.

But back in the mid 80s such things just didn’t seem to be done in the same way.  If you wanted fruit and veg, then that is where on Beech Road you went.  Just like if you needed paraffin or the odd nail or screw you went to the ironmongers next to Wilkinson’s the butchers.  Everyone knew them and knew what they sold.

Of course within a few years the old council offices had become the Lead Station, the grocers' beside the barbers' had become Primavera and the Wool Shop was to become Truth.

All of which makes Tom’s picture such a wonderful record of the old Beech Road some of us still remember.  And as if on cue as I was standing outside one of the new shops a couple went past telling their friend about “trendy Beech Road.”

What a lot has changed.

Picture, from the collection of Tom McGrath

Discovering Cromford Canal ……. walks in the Lea Woods ….. no. 2

I collect canals, and today it is the Cromford Canal.

The canal, 2024

It was opened in 1794 and just two centuries later “was acquired by Derbyshire County Council as an Amenity Waterway”.

According to my Priestly’s account of the “Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain”, it was “eighteen miles in length” passed the Codnor Park  and Butterley Iron Walks, traversed the Rivers Amber, Erewash and Derwent and disappeared into several tunnels, before being joined by the Cromford and High Peak Railway just half a mile from Cromford.

Had I been transporting goods in 1830 along the canal I would have been charged “1d per ton per mile for coal, coke, lime and limestone intended to be burnt into lime, and 1½d for iron, iron-stone, lead and other minerals , marble, alabaster, and other stone and timber”.

The canal, 1830

We walked just a short section from the former railway station before turning down a footpath which follows the Lea Brook.

The Pumping Station, 2024

But in that short distance we encountered heaps of industrial buildings, including a Pump House, several outbuildings and plenty of ruined structures, all of which are now part of the collection.

Water and green stuff, 2024

Long ago our bit of the canal to the footpath and been drained and nature in the form of trees and bushes and taken over, but in places the water reappeared and along its length there was still evidence of the stone embankments.

Added to which across the length of the walk there was an abundance of wild garlic which fascinated our Arlo who at 5 was full of harvesting as much as he could.

It is a popular "water amenity" and on a bright warm sunny spring day it was fun meeting a host of walkers along with the couple who oblivious to all of us sat and exchanged a long lingering kiss.

So another to add to the my book of canals, and despite its peaceful appearance this would have been a working canal which terminated not far from Arkwright’s spinning mill which had been opened just 23 years earlier.

And so that is it.

Location; Lea Woods, Cromford

The kiss, 2024

Pictures; walking the canal, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and a section of the Cromford Canal, 1830 from Bradshaw’s The Inland Navigation of England and Wales, 1830,  courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

One of many forgotten buildings, 2024

*Priestly, Joseph, “Navigable Rivers and, Canals, and Railways, Throughout Great Britain, 1830

Making litter interesting …… the happy story

Now the idea that discarding rubbish in public places is something new ignores the past.

Making litter fun, 2022

The Keep Britain Tidy Campaign was started in 1955, and pictures of Chorlton including the Rec marred by causally dropped litter are there in the historic record from the 1900s.

So good I took it again, 2022

And I bet there was some one in the Roman city of Pompeii on the eve of its destruction in 79 AD who was motivated to dash off a stern letter to the town council on the growing pile of smelly stuff left by customers of the many street takeaway businesses.

Indeed, if I searched long enough, I could find ordinances from the Egyptian authorities who were constantly clearing up after tourists in the Valley of the Kings.

So, with that in mind here is a bit of happy street furniture seen in the Rec yesterday.

Location; the Rec on Beech Road

 Picture; Making litter fun, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chasing down the mystery ……. walks in the Lea Woods ….. no. 1

Take one holiday home which clearly has heaps of history possibly back to old King George 111, throw in a wall and a ruined fireplace in the lane opposite and here is a bit of mystery well worth looking into.

Bits of the holiday home, 2024

The holiday home was one of those grey Derbyshire stone buildings set on three floors with a modern extension facing the Lea Brook just outside Cromford.

Forgotten fireplace, 2024

The wall juts out from the side of the house and still has two large stone iron hinges along with a hole to accommodate a lintel while opposite there is the remains of a fireplace.

All of which suggests that our holiday let was once part of a bigger structure which stretched across the lane and incorporated the fireplace.

But as ever the devil is in the detail and maps going back to the late 1870s show no such structure.  Instead in 1879 there is a suggestion that it did extend ever so slightly into the lane, but that is it.

As for the fireplace that might have been part of a series of out buildings which formed a large complex which had been a hat works but by the time the OS staff had surveyed the area in 1879 it had become disused.

And by the 1920s while elements of the former hat works remained in situ, the building that might have housed our fireplace had gone. 

Although the 1924 OS and later 1938 map show that the holiday home retained what I guess was a smaller addition. *

Lea Brook, 1896

So, the mystery as yet is still a mystery.

My directories for the area start and finish either side of the start of the 19th century, and the earliest map from National Library of Scotland date from 1879.

More of the holiday home, 2024

If I lived closed to Cromford I could search out the local studies centre, and appeal to the history association, but that for now is it.

But I have the census returns for the 19th and early 20 centuries which with time will lead to the residents of our holiday home, and perhaps more.

And just after I posted my old chum Bill Summers drew attention to the wo pictures of the house commenting on the the wall with the chimney pot, and I realized that I hadn't included the end wall with the iron brackets and lintel hole.

Now, given that the iron brackets aren't easy to see, I left it out but here it is with the hole that once would have been occupied by a lintel.

Leaving me just tp wait for someone from Cromford with access to the archives.

Location; Lea Bridge, Cromford

Pictures; of our holiday home, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and detail of the OS Map, 1896 from courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

The wall with the lintel hole, 2024

*National Library of Scotland,  https://maps.nls.uk/view/101601063

A little bit of our tiled past on Beech Road above the cocktails and pizzas

John Williams & Sons Ltd 2015

I can’t be exactly sure when this bit of tiled wall disappeared behind the false wall at number 32 Beech Road, but I am guessing it will have been sometime in the 1960s when the grocery shop which was John Williams and Sons became the Maypole Launderette and later still the Soap Opera.

And like many others who sat watching the washing going round and then waited for the clothes to dry in those huge tumble driers I was totally unaware that hidden from view high and close to the ceiling beside the window there was this sign.

The other surprise was that John Williams and Sons were not local traders but in fact owned a chain of grocer shops across the city and beyond which in 1931 accounted for 41 shops of which there were three in Chorlton**, six in Didsbury and another four in Rusholme.

John Williams & Sons, 1932

Back in 1895 they are listed  with five shops in Didsbury and Fallowfield which by 1911 had become 11 with John Williams described as managing director and the head office at 400 Dickinson Road.

Later still although I can’t date it is a wonderful advert for the company which advertises their ‘“Dainty, Delightful Delicious Tea, [from] John Williams & Sons limited, “The Suburban Grocers”, [at] 28 Victoria Street Manchester Stockport & Branches’.

And looking at the interior of one of their shops sometime in the early 20th century there is more than an element of “class” about the place.

So while the shelves groan with tinned produce and between the potted plants are the familiar posters advertising Californian Apricots at 6½d, and Coffee and other things, it is less cluttered, less in your face and far more discreet than some of the grocery chains of the period.

Taking in Beech Road in 1932

Of course we will never be quite sure whether our John William’s was typical of the chain but I rather think it will have been for then as now there was a corporate brand image to maintain.

Certainly the picture of the Beech Road shop in 1932 would suggest as much.

Which brings me back to the tiled bit of the wall.

Now given the way these things work I doubt that there will be many of these left, most will have been painted over covered in a thick skim of plaster or just knocked off the wall.

The closed Soap Opera, 2011

So all credit to the owners of the Launderette who have incorporated this little bit of the buildings past in the present decor.

They of course have also given a nod to the buildings previous use and now also to its time as a grocery store, all of which reminds me that the price of preserving the past is eternal vigilance which I am the first to admit is to misquote what the American Abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips said in 1852.**

Now that is almost where we came in because I only discovered that bit of tile after yesterdays story on Beech Road in 1932, which prompted Anne-Marie Goodfellow to point out that it had been preserved by the restaurant.

And in turn that led me back to two of Peter Topping’s painting from his series which set out to record how Chorlton was changing.

The Launderette 2014

Late in 2011 Peter had painted the Soap Opera after its last rinse and tumble dry had finished and went back just after the Launderette had opened its doors offering “cocktails and carbs” and much more.

Now I bet there will be plenty of people who also have pictures, memories and the odd bit of memorabilia from a lost Chorlton shop which we would all like to share.

To which John added,    "I used to deliver orders on a real order bike with a big cage on the front, from that very shop on Beech Road, 15/- bob a week, and tips. 1959/60."

Which is a nice way to conclude, given that we started with that tiled sign  for John Williams and Sons, purveyors of all things grocery and end with John the delivery boy.

Pictures; the tiled advert for John Williams and Sons, 2015 from  the collection of Andrew Simpson suggested by Anne-Marie Goodfellow and  Beech Road in 1932 from the Lloyd Collection

Paintings; the Soap Opera, © 2011 and the Launderette, © 2014, Peter Topping, 
Facebook; Paintings from Pictures, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*32 Beech Road, Wilbraham Road, 211 Upper Chorlton Road.

**“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” Wendell Phillips on January 28, 1852, speaking to members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

The Parade Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath

Now I don’t have a date for this picture, but I bet there will be someone who does.

And I hope will also have some stories to tell us.

So I shall just leave it at that, the Parade, Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath sometime before now.

And soon after it was posted someone offered up a date, "this photo has to be pre 1925 as my flat is not even built yet. You see where the horse and cart is? That's where we are and they built a new set of shops and flats just after 1925."

All I need now is to know who this was and thank them properly.

Picture; courtesy of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm

Blancmange ........ with a bit of nostalgia and a history lesson in fast food from the 19th century

I grew up with Blancmange and it is one of those puddings that mark me out as a child of the 1950s.

Historically it goes back to the Middle Ages when it was made with chicken, milk, rice and sugar, and variations can be found across Europe as far down as Turkey.

But in our house and I guess in most homes it came in sachets and consisted of flavoured cornflour to which you added some sugar and a pint of milk and  given that it was that simple it was something mother trusted me to make for my sisters.

And this week after something like half a century I am about to make it again.

Now I can’t quite make up my mind up as to whether this is just pure nostalgia or something more.

After all there are plenty of retrospective TV programmes featuring the food we ate and the scary thing is that those featuring the 1950s so powerfully take me back to that time of dripping, sugar sandwiches, and over cooked cabbage that I spend days afterwards boring the family with the stories of what we ate.

Of course it is remarkable how our eating habits changed dramatically from the end of rationing in 1954 with a whole range of new and convenience foods which were on offer within five years.

All of which takes me back to blancmange which was a product of an earlier revolution in quick and cheap foods which surfaced in the middle of the 19th century and included Mr Bird’s custard powder.

Despite those who can be sniffy about custard powder and I have been one of them in my time it must have offered up a boon to those running a home at a time when there were few labour saving devices.

It avoided the need to buy eggs and just required that pint of milk a bit of heat and some stirring.

And apparently lots of people also reached for a packet of the stuff for according to the Independent,  Pearce Duff which are the only company still making blancmange, sell 700,000 units a year and sales were up by 7%*

So I shall give my blancmange a go later today.

*Old food brands that refuse to die out, The Independent, March 14 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/old-food-brands-that-refuse-to-die-out-469869.html

Almost a ghost sign …..

Beech Road

Location; Beech Road

Picture; Almost a ghost sign, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Slow day in Chorlton ..........

It was a quiet time on Beech Road.

The kids were at school, the commuters were well and truly on their way, leaving just the odd delivery van a couple shopping for a late breakfast and me.

The Lead had yet to open, Etchells, and the Chemist had a few visitors,  leaving me to take a some pictures.

And to reflect on the history of the place.

The Lead as everyone knows was a former police station, the Etchell’s family maintain the continuity of a newsagents which stretches back to the beginning of the last century, and the Chinese takeaway resides in a premise which has an unbroken history of selling fish and chips from when Queen Victoria was on the throne.

Which only leaves me to report that until the 1870s this road was called Chorlton Row and is a pretty old thoroughfare connecting Barlow Moor Lane with the village green.

Stand in the middle of the road  in the early morning before most of the cars have arrived and you can see its twisty turny path which once would have accommodated  the natural obstacles of trees, Blomley's fish pond and field boundaries.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Beech Road, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Space ….. the place to be in 1953

I was too young to remember the first series of Journey into Space.

It was broadcast during the autumn of 1953 into the January of the following year, when I was just four.

And by the time that last series finished in the February of 1957 I would have been watching the telly with mother, leaving dad in the kitchen with the old coal stove, and the wireless to listen alone.

My Wikipedia tells me that “Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last UK radio programme to attract a bigger evening audience than television. Originally, four series were produced with the fourth a remake of the first......  Chilton later wrote three best-selling novels and several comic strip stories based upon the radio series”.*

I can’t claim to have read any of the books but followed his comic strips in the Eagle Comic, and a full 40 years ago I got a tape of the first series which at times sounded hammy and a bit stilted but took me back to that kitchen, the wireless and Dad.

So that is it, leaving me just share those memories of the 1950s, and the adventures on the Home Service of Captain Andrew “Jet Morgan”, Doctor Daniel “Doc” Matthews, Stephen “Mitch" Mitchell and Lemuel “Lemmy” Barnet. 

With just one extra, and that is a reflection on Pan Books. Long before l started on Penguin and Pelican paperbacks l was an avid reader of Pan. The company offered up a range of novels often with striking or lurid front covers. 

Here l found Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the James Bond classics all of which drew me into reading.  

And that in turn was thanks to mother and an English teacher at Samuel Pepys who picked up loads of second hand paperbacks which were left for us to dip in into.

Leaving me just to include this book on the Roman Invasion by Leonard Cotterell bought my mum in 1961 when l was 11 and still in the collection.

Location; My childhood

Pictures; cover of Journey into Space, circa 1954, and the Great Invasion, 1961

*Journey into Space, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_into_Space

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 33 ..... building the barrier

Now for many the Thames Barrier will just be one of those bits of river furniture, but for those of us who remember it being built, it was a fascinating engineering project, and this is the first of a few pictures taken during its construction.

For four decades it was one of the photographs I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

An interesting Roman Emperor ....... Julian the Apostate

This is one I am listening to.

It is from the Radio 4 series In Our Time

Julian

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and introduced a policy of tolerating the faith across the empire, Julian (c.331 - 363 AD) aimed to promote paganism instead, branding Constantine the worst of all his predecessors. 

Julian was a philosopher-emperor in the mould of Marcus Aurelius and was noted in his lifetime for his letters and his satires, and it was his surprising success as a general in his youth in Gaul that had propelled him to power barely twenty years after a rival had slaughtered his family. 

Julian's pagan mission and his life were brought to a sudden end while on campaign against the Sasanian Empire in the east, but he left so much written evidence of his ideas that he remains one of the most intriguing of all the Roman emperors and a hero to the humanists of the Enlightenment.

With, James Corke-Webster, Reader in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College, London, Lea Niccolai, Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics, Trinity College, and Shaun Tougher, Professor of Late Roman and Byzantine History at Cardiff University

Julian

Producer: Simon Tillotson"*

Picture; Julian, The Frigidarium in Cluny, Ash Crow, 2015, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: attribution share alike This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

*Julian the Apostate, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xd7b

Standing on the lost Prichard Street in the summer of 1971 ……… with no thoughts of the future

There will still be some people who remember the close network of streets and houses that stretched back from Oxford Road to the Medlock, and from Charles Street down to Great Street.

Pritchard Street on the cusp of change, 1971

In all there were fourteen streets and countless houses which were all swept away so that the BBC could have a new broadcasting centre here in Manchester.

The lost streets included Pritchard Street, Hesketh, Leigh and Saville Streets and along with the houses there had been a school and a pub.

Planning permission had been granted in 1968 and after a hiccup building began in 1971 was finished in 1975 and the place was home to the BBC until 2011.

And for those wanting to impress a companion, about 800 staff worked there and with the opening of the second studio in 1981 the BBC closed Broadcasting House in Piccadilly which had been there for 52 years.

And now Broadcasting House has gone replaced by Circle Square.

Pritchard Street, 1894

In the meantime, I wonder how many memories of those that lived in that small area can be shared.

After all the buildings only began to be cleared in 1968.

Broadcasting House, 2011

All of which has been prompted by that picture at the top of the page, which must have been taken in the summer of 1971.

We were on Prichard Street with Charles Street and the Lass O’Gowrie in the distance, surrounded by the remains of a warehouse to our right and what had once been a row of back-to-back house.

At the time I doubt we had any idea what the developers had planned, and more than likely we were on our way down to The Eighth Day or to meet up with friends at the Art College on All Saints.

The picture and the memories of that day have lain hidden for over half a century but offer up a little insight into the area off Oxford Road on the cusp of its development.

Lost and forgotten warehouses, 1971

I did wander down during the demolition of the old BBC Broadcasting House, and waited patiently for the site to be redeveloped.

But it seemed an age before the ground was broken and the development began to rise, pretty much eclipsing the surrounding buildings.

Now I don't pretend to be Methuselah, but in the space of that time from the summer of 1971 I have seen the rise of Broadcasting House, its demise and the subsequent rise of Circle Square. 

I guess it is presumptuous to suppose I will be around for the next development/

Well we shall see.

Location; Oxford Road, 1971-2022

Pictures; Prichard Street, 1971,  tall buildings and stairs, Circle Square, Manchester, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpsonand map of the area in 1894, from the OS of South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ BBC New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, 2011, from the collection of Andy Robertson

One Circle Square, 2022

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ......... nu 56 the vanished fourteen and the story of the BBC, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/lost-and-forgotten-streets-of_5.html

Coming soon ….. The Streets of Chorlton

The Simpson & Topping partnership are working on a new series of books which will explore the stories behind the doors of some of our most loved places.

And along the way will challenge that widely held belief that there are no streets in Chorlton which is an idea that regularly floats across social media and pops up in the odd pub quiz.

To be fair the last “street” disappeared over a century and a bit ago, but they did exist, can be found in the historical records and were once well known.

Names like Chorlton Row, Lloyd Street, Cross Street, Back Lane and House Yard Road have long since vanished from living memory but along with Pitt Brow and Lane End they were places where people lived.

Chorlton Row [Beech Road] 1854

So, the series will start with the ever-popular Beech Road which for centuries was just a twisty turny rural lane connecting Chorlton Green with Barlow Moor Lane.

Had you walked it in say 1850 you could have marvelled at the few posh houses along its path, caught a glimpse of old Mr. Gratrix in his farm house, chatted with Mrs Sutton in the garden of her thatched wattle and daub cottage and stayed to gaze at the blacksmith engaged in the magic of heating and hammering.

Throw in a pint in the Traveller’s Rest which was a modest beer shop almost facing the village green and you pretty much had the lot.

Andrew has begun writing the stories behind the doors and Peter is busy sourcing previously unknown old pictures as well as painting a few new ones.

If you think your road, lane, close or avenue has a story do let us know.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Peter’s painting based on a photograph of Beech Road, from the early 20th century, Chorlton Row, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

“It’s good to talk”* …….. today at the Tea Hive

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that we all like to chat whether it’s over the phone, across a pub table or on a park bench with a friend.**

The 18th century had its coffee shops, the 19th its chop houses and the last century its Milk Bars.

Go back far enough into the past and I bet you could find a couple of Romans discussing gladiator fights and the best fish sauce to take home to mother, or the children of Noah on the different sorts of rain.

All of which is an introduction to a new project today at the Tea Hive on Manchester Road.  It is centred on that simple idea that we all like to chat.

It is part of a nationwide scheme called Chatty Café, which Jessica Mayne says offers “a friendly safe space for anyone who wants to leave their troubles at the door and have a natter with approachable people. Even if it’s just to drop by with a quick hello!

Order a drink, scan Teahive and you will see me, Jess, the host - bright yellow cards laden our table. Anyone at a bit of a loss, wanting a chin wag or even just a little listen to others or a board game. Stay as little or long as you like. It’s good to talk. pop on by!”

And sometimes the fun is in just taking time out to meet up face to face with someone, who isn’t on a social media platform, doesn’t have to rush off, or wants to sell something.

So that is it ….. today at the Tea Hive on Manchester Road between 1 and 3.

Painting: The Tea Hive © 2019. Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures, https://paintingsfrompictures.co.uk/

*BT advertising campaign, 1994

** with apologies to Jane Austen

Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 2 trenches in Piccadilly

Looking across to the site of the MRI sometime after 1911

Now Piccadilly Gardens continues to excite a wealth of feelings from those who miss the old sunken gardens and have no love for that concrete slab to those who dwell on the seedy last days of the old park and point out that in these cost cutting days the present space is pretty low maintenance.

Of course before 1914 there were no gardens just the site of the Royal Infirmary which when it was demolished left a debate on what to do with the site.

It took a few years before the Corporation decided that this was a perfect place for a park in one of the busiest parts of the city.

This much I knew but what I didn’t know was that in the June of 1917 according to the Manchester Evening News the Red Cross “found a practical use for the old Infirmary site in Piccadilly ....[turning] it into a miniature sector of the Western Front.

Manchester Evening News, June 1917

The front line trenches and their equipment are said to be perfect in every detail.  There are grim touches of realism here and there, - like the torn and tattered heap of clothing nearthe terrible barbed wire entanglements to represent a dead Boche.  Some rare and valuable war relics may also be seen, including some fine specimens of enemy guns.

With infinite labour the trench diggers who were the convalescent soldiers from Heaton Park, have passed right through the heavy masonry and substantial brickwork of the old Infirmary foundations.”

There is no record of what the "convalescent soldiers from Heaton Park" thought of the task and I have yet to dig deeper to discover what the public made of the “miniature sector of the Western Front” in the heart of the city.

But once they had explored the trenches they could go on to visit the adjoining museum which “was wonderfully interesting.”

All of which just begs the question of why the display was produced.

Given that it had been produced by the Special Effects Committee of the East Lancashire branch of the Red Cross I suspect that along with its propaganda value it was linked to the organisation’s campaign for volunteers and funds.

I do know that Heaton Park had had its on set of trenches which were open to the public and no doubt so did other parts of the country.

Pictures; the site of the Infirmary, date unknown from the collection of Rita Bishop and Trenches in Piccadilly ............ a New Use for the Old Infirmary Site June 1917,  the Manchester Evening News from Sally Dervan

“a true representation of the present state of Manchester” …… September 1907

This representation of Manchester I like.

And I guess it is the one countless people have had of our city stretching back to the time when the first smoky factory chimneys rose from the ground and helped coin that description of Manchester as the “shock city of the Industrial Revolution”.*

Certainly it chimed with an H. R., who wrote "I hereby present to you Sept 14. 07 with a true representation of the present state of M/C, as it is presented to our eyes, by night.  

Isn’t it really Beautiful?  Doesn’t it look a healthy place to live in?”

He/she was writing to a Mrs. McKeilty in Ballynahinch which my Wikipedia tells me is "is small town. On Census day (27 March 2011) there were 5,703 people living in Ballynahinch (2,326 households), accounting for 0.31% of the Northern Ireland total and representing an increase of 6.3% on the Census 2001 figure of 5,363."**

Which I rather think would make it smaller than Gorton where H.R. was living in 1907 at 28 Jackson Street.

Reading the rest of the message I think he/she was from Ballynahinch and so the contrast with Manchester must have been very striking.

The card was published by the The Cynicus Publishing Company of Fife and  was established by Martin Anderson, who according to one source was “better known by his pseudonym Cynicus, was a Scottish artist, political illustrator and publisher”.***

His early working life involved producing illustrations for a variety of publications, before setting up in his own business in London in 1891, and from there setting up a postcard company publishing his own designs in 1902.

After a promising start his business like many suffered from a fall in the popularity of such picture postcard and the company went into liquidation with his stocks of prints and original work were sold for a fraction of their real worth.

A further attempt at a similar business also met with failure when the market for seaside picture postcards declined with the outbreak of the Great War.

Mr. Martin produced a series of anti-war posters and cards, which got him into trouble with the authorities. 

“In 1924 his Edinburgh shop was destroyed by fire, everything inside it was lost, and he did not have the funds to repair and restock it. 

He retired to his castle-like mansion in Balmullo to live in increasing poverty. A final edition of The Satires of Cynicus was published in 1926.”***

He died in 1932, and was buried in an unmarked grave, without a tombstone, and the final indignity was that his home was extensively vandalised after his death.

Leaving me just to say I am a great fan of his work which I have written about on the blog.****

Location; Manchester in 1907

Picture; Lovely Manchester, 19907, from the collection of David Harrop

*Briggs Asa, Victorian Cities, 1968

** Ballynahinch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballynahinch,_County_Down

*** Cynicus, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicus

****The Last Car from Woolwich ..... Manchester .... Rouken Glen and pretty much everywhere ……. the story with a sad ending, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-last-car-from-woolwich-manchester.html

The woman in a shawl at the foot of Oliver Cromwell in the summer of 1914

It’s the last of my Judge postcards. 

Like the others in the series which Fred Judge took in the summer of 1914 it has much going for it not least because it isn’t the standard view.

Instead we have the statue of Oliver Cromwell matched by the Cathedral behind and balanced by the building to our extreme right.

But for me it is also the figures he has captured sitting on the steps.

There is the mixed group of boys including one in school uniform and beside him what might be a paper seller and the others, two of whom are engaged in a game.

And there is the woman in the shawl not at all interested in the camera deep in thought or perhaps listening to the chap next to her.

She is interesting because you rarely see women in shawls in post cards of the period.

They were there in the city and were often the subject of pictures taken on the poorer streets.

She makes a fitting contrast to the more elegant woman with their fine hats and expensive looking clothes off in the distance.

I wish I knew more about her, or for that matter the group standing by the tram, which is heading up to Market Street.

I can’t be sure but I rather think it is a Sunday sometime in the summer, partly because this is from the same series of pictures Fred Judge took around Manchester and may well be the next after the one on Cross Street.

In his photograph of Albert Square from Cross Street the time is just before three in the afternoon and here beside Oliver Cromwell the Cathedral clock is just coming up to a quarter to four.

Which was just enough time for him to stroll down and set up here.
The crowd by and large are oblivious to his presence and just get on with the day, some no doubt heading on to Bell Vue which is the final destination of our tram.


Picture; from the collection of V & G Harris

In St Ann’s Square with the Rotary Photo Company …… sometime in the early 20th century

Now if you wanted proof that St Ann’s Square has always been a busy and fussy place, the evidence is here in this picture postcard.

I don’t have a date, but I am guessing we are sometime in the early 20th century, and a bit of detective work using the names of the shops and street directories will get close to when the picture was taken.

Everyone will pick up on some different bit of the picture, from the line of taxis and the cabby’s hut, to the throng of people parading through the square and that female cyclist.

And then there is another story around the company who published the picture postcard.

I had causally thought that Rotary Photo, EC were a Manchester firm, but not so.

According to that excellent site, Graces Guide to British Industrial History, they were a London business with offices at 23 Moorfields London, with works at West Drayton.

They were established in 1901, as The Rotary Photographic Co and “was a huge publisher of real photo postcards. 

One of their unique novelty postcards was a 1¾ inch x 5½ inch (4.4cm x 13.9cm) photo series of bookmark cards. Most seem to have been posted in the 1903-04 period".

Later in the century they amalgamated with other photographic companies and were still in business in 1947.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; St Ann’s Square, date unknown, courtesy of Steve

*Graces Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Rotary_Photographic_Co