Stolen underwear ……. lost Chorlton tunnels ……. and other urban myths

History is messy, and amongst the disasters, the human tragedies, and the great discoveries there are those dark conspiracies, some of which never come out of the shadows, a few which do, and a heap more made up on a slow wet Sunday by people who should know better.

Secrets behind the bricked up entrance, 2023?

I don’t underestimate the “dark”, powerful, and unseen forces which conspire to change events mainly in their own favour but then there are also those “instant assumptions” that when an old building catches fire there must be a sinister intent whether it be a dodgy developer or an owner out to make a winning on an insurance claim.

I saw an example only yesterday where there was an allegation about a now long gone Chorlton landmark and a fire which must have been deliberate.

And more generally there are those urban myths about the tunnels that crisscross Chorlton which were explored by a friend of a friend, but always challenge logic. 

 Like the passage between the home of the Protestant Mosley family at Hough End Hall to the house of the Catholic Barlow’s. Or the one that ran from the Horse and Jockey under the old village green to St Clement’s church, navigating around over 300 burials.

Leaving just the tale of Mrs. Trellis’s stolen underwear which had been pinned to the ceiling of Tommy Ducks that popular city centre pub which incidentally was knocked down in the dead of night before anyone could renew a preservation order.  

The order so the story goes ran out at midnight on February 12th and property demolished soon after before a fresh preservation order could be sought on the 13th.

Tunnels under the gravestones, 2023?

No one knows who stole her donated underwear, but you can bet there are conspiratorial accounts circulating somewhere on social media.

I don’t doubt there are examples of skulduggery, but it is the instant fallback position of some that there must always be a sinister explanation for a disaster.

Or in the case of a certain city centre post box  at the heart of the IRA bomb outrage which some believe is not all it seems to be.

Bad things happen, fires start in old buildings, people look for conspiracies and no one stole Mrs. Trellis’s underwear from Tommy Ducks.

Location, anywhere where there is a dark corner

Pictures; Deansgate Locks, 2023, and the former graveyard of St Clement's Church, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson