Cornbrook ….. all you ever wanted to know ….. but never knew where to look

There will be many people who remember the older Cornbrook.

Cornbrook in 1950

It was a place of busy industry, densely packed housing all cut through by two canals and a swathe of railway lines.

And with the spread of new residential developments the area is again a bustling place, making the Cornbrook metro stop a place which always seems packed with commuters.

To which can be added all those who use it as a switching hub to swop trams and go off in different directions.

But I remember Cornbrook after the houses had come down, the factories, mills,  and warehouses had closed and it all seemed as if the area was waiting for something to happen.

A state of affairs mirrored by the planners who I discovered didn’t even vouch to provide the metro stop with an entrance back in 1999 when it opened.

Cornbrook entrance, 2024

According to my Wikipedia, “Cornbrook was unique when opened as there was no access to/from the street, the stop being used for transfer between Bury-Altrincham line trams and Eccles Line trams. 

This was due to security issues and a low estimated usage.

Because of a rise in the local population due to new residential developments, particularly on Ellesmere Street, the stop's emergency exit staircase to the street was converted into a full passenger entrance/exit, which opened on 3 September 2005. 

There are plans to relocate the entrance as part of the "Cornbrook Hub" redevelopment”. *

Now that last sentence intrigued me. The 2013 report talked of an “Intimidating and potentially unsafe main entrance to the Cornbrook Metrolink station” and the need for “Re-positioning the entrance to the Cornbrook Metrolink station”.

Heading for the Cornbrook Metro Stop, 2024

And I have to agree, because despite using the stop since it opened, I had never ventured down onto ground level and it is a grim, desolate and uninviting place, which is not somewhere I would like to use late in the evening, or for that matter any time of the day.

But use it I did as part of  the research for our new book in the series, The History of Greater Manchester By Tram The Stories at the Stops.

The idea of telling the story of Greater Manchester by using the tram network has a lot going for it. 

You can catch a tram from the city centre and go south, east, north, and west and along the way each of the 99 stops will have a story to tell, and being the tram, you can just jump off, explore this little pocket of history and move on. 

Or skip to the end destinations and discover interesting historical things about Didsbury, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Rochdale, Oldham, Salford and bits of Trafford, Altrincham and Bury.

So back to Cornbrook and a little flavour of what is to come, because while many can remember that older Cornbrook which fizzed with business and have their own tales of nights in The  Railway and Pomona Palace or of stories about Pomona Docks, no one now can boast of visiting Pomona Gardens.

The view from the entrance, Cornbrook Metro Stop, 2024

It was a mix of attractions including “the magic bridge, Gymnasium, flying swings, bowling green, rifle shooting, romantic walks and a promenade for both adults and juveniles as well as boat trips on the Irwell.”   

 In the summer of 1850, it pulled out the stops with its “Splendid representation of the ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS, as it occurred in 1849, the most terrific on record.”   Here was the “magnificent Bay of Naples, painted and erected by the celebrated artist Mr. A.F. Tait, and extends the whole length of the lake covering upwards of 20,000 yards of canvas and is one of the Largest ever Erected in England.” ***

It had opened in the 1840s but couldn’t better its rival at Bell Vue and finally succumbed to a land grab by the Ship Canal.

Almost gone, the Railway, at Cornbrook, 2003

But all of that and more will be in the book, leaving me just to add the area takes its name from the Corn Brook which according to that excellent book The Lost Rivers of Manchester "rises in Gorton and follows a tortuous path through Manchester’s southern ‘inner city’ suburbs and empties itself into the Ship Canal at Pomona Docks”.

For anyone who as not discovered this gem of a book it is well worth reading, more so because it’s author Geoffrey Ashworth recently revised his 1987 book with additional material. ****

And it will feature in the new book being written on The History of Greater Manchester by Tram which will explore that section of the network from Cornbrook via Deansgate Castlefield and onto Exchange Square.*****

The first Trafford Bar to East Didsbury was published earlier in the year and is already proving a popular read.

It is available from Chorlton Bookshop, and from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk, price £4.99

Location; Cornbrook

Pictures; Bits of Cornbrook, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and All that was left of the Railway, 2003, courtesy of Andy Robertson, Cornbrook in 1950, from the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1950

*Cornbrook tram stop, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornbrook_tram_stop 

**Cornbrook Hub, Cornbrook Regeneration Framework November 2013, http://www.manchester.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/21225/cornbrook_regeneration_framework_november_2013

*** Slater’s Manchester & Salford Directory 1850

****Ashworth, Geoffrey, The Lost Rivers of Manchester, 1987, updated, 2023

*****A new book on the History of Greater Manchester By Tram, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Greater%20Manchester%20by%20Tram