How long before the last Chorlton farmer has gone? ……….. when things change

“Every year we witness the loss of another field to the onward march of brick and glass, and I truly wonder when all that will be left of the old Chorlton-cum-Hardy will be the memories of those ancient men and women who laboured in the open, brought in the yearly harvest and sent the produce of the land they tilled to market”.

Mr. Higginbotham brings in the harvest, undated

It is a lament for the passing of a rural way of life which might well have been uttered by many here in Chorlton during the last two decades of the 19th century.

From the 1880s through into the 1920s, there was a huge housing boom, extending along Barlow Moor Road, Wilbraham Road and out in all directions.

It had started after the arrival of the railway at Stretford in 1849, gathered pace with the creation of Wilbraham Road in the late 1860s and became a boom in the succeeding decades.

The first new houses were grand mansions set in ample grounds and home to wealthy businessmen, later came the rows of semi-detached and terraced properties occupied by professionals, managers and clerks many of whom worked in town and wanted to retreat to a semi-rural Chorlton.

Ploughing Row Acre, circa 1894

In 1851 there had been just 750 people in the three small hamlets that made up Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and most were engaged in growing crops or the related trades of blacksmith, wheelwright and thatcher.  

Added to which earlier in the century there is evidence of handloom weaving.

And three decades later perhaps 50% of the cottages were still constructed of wattle and daub that mainstay of rural properties.

Mains water only arrived in the early 1860s, followed by gas a decade later along with the first sanitation works, and the railway and later corporation tram network from 1880 onwards.

It was the combination of all these which made possible the housing boom.

Wilbraham Road, circa 1911

Plus, a clever plan by the main landowners to make it easier for speculative builders to engage in building and of course that simple fact that rents from agricultural land were no where near what could be accrued from properties.

All of which brings me back to the opening quotation abhorring that swift spread of urbanization.

And here I have to be honest ….. I made it up, because the opinions of those who worked on the land have not survived.

Thomas Ellwood our own historian did collect the memories of some “old residents” in the course of writing his history of Chorlton-cum- Hardy during the winter of 1885 and the spring of 1886, and they described many of the old rural practices but remained silent on the changes.*

Looking down Wilbraham Road, undated

That said we do know that the area around the former four banks stretching up to the library and out to Longford Hall became known as New Chorlton or the New Village/New Town to distinguish it from Old Chorlton which was the area around the village green and up Beech Road.

And to reinforce that divide New Chorlton had the banks and most of the shops while in the village we had just a post office and the Penny Savings Bank which opened for just a few hours once a week in the school on the green.

But it was a divide which lasted a full century with people still referring to Old and New Chorlton at the turn of this century.

Looking out on Manchester Road from the Sedge Lynn, circa 1880s

Such are the ways we react to change, and it was one of those comments on social media about how much Chorlton had changed and changed for the worse which occasioned this story.

I have been here since 1976 and there has been plenty of change, and some not in my opinion for the best, but it is as well to remember that very few communities stay the same.

And most places are constantly renewing themselves with buildings and with people.

Leading me to smile at those who publish comments about true “Chorltonians” as if there has even been a time.

So going back to 1851, the roads, lanes and fields of our township would have been alive with the accents of people from all over the UK, many of whom were domestic or farm servants. 

The smithy, Beech Road circa 1880

The arrival of the Duke’s Canal in nearby Stretford followed by the railway in 1849 would have opened up Chorlton, as indeed did the itinerant traders who plied their businesses around the villages south of Manchester, and of course the “weekend visitors” from town looking for peaceful country walks or on the “lash” looking for opportunities to drink themselves happily into oblivion in our small pubs and beer shops.

Now “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition” and few in the 1840s and ‘50s would have seen that housing boom coming and just how within a few decades it would transform our small rural community.**

Funny how things change.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Bringing in the harvest, date unknown,  Ploughing Row Acre before it became the Recreation Ground, 1894 , courtesy of William Higginbotham, Wilbraham Road, circa 1900,  from the Lloyd Collection, Manchester Road from the Sedge Lynn, courtesy of Miss Booth, 1880s, , and the Smithy on Beech Road, circa 1880s, from the Lloyd Collection

*The History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Thomas Ellwood, 1885-86, in 26 articles, published in the South Manchester Gazette

**Monty Python's Flying Circus, series 2 episode 2 September 22nd 1970