A new park for Chorlton?

It’s not much of a story really but it does point to the changes that had been taking place in Chorlton over the last two decades of the 19th century.

Before the rapid development of housing in and around the railway station and along the Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Roads there had been plenty of open spaces with fields to walk around and woods to explore in and ponds and water courses to play beside.

This changed as more and more of Chorlton was given over to rows of houses which prompted one resident to write to the Manchester Guardian, “being so near town, there is a demand for houses and they rise like mushrooms.  

Rows, avenues, and semi detached in abundance, each with a small garden, where flowers can be grown if the smoke from the chimneys will allow; but very few have a grass plot large enough for the children to play on.”*

Apparently there had been hopes that a good site on Wilbraham Road might have been turned into a park but it was sold for building, “then the residue of an estate in Barlow Moor Road was for sale which is nicely wooded; that has now been sold to the Roman Catholics.”  All of which led the writer to fear that “Chorlton will soon be as crowded as Alexandra Park but without the park.”

But there was one field left which “in the general opinion of the residents is the right spot for the much talked of park.  The plot extends from Wilbraham Road to a new road about to be cut – Holland Road, I think it is to be called.  It is flanked on one side by Cavendish Road [Corkland] and on the other by the railway.”

It says much for the period that the writer expected the land and the maintenance of the park would be achieved by public subscription.

In the event it never happened and the plot was built on.  It would be a few more years before the Recreational Ground on Beech Road was laid out and well into the 1920s before Chorlton Park was established.

But next time I take the short cut down Zetland Road  [Holland] to Corkland Road [Cavendish] and onto Morrisons I’ll reflect on what might have been.

Pictures;, detail from the OS map of Lancashire, Manchester and South East, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk, and Holland Road from the Lloyd collection

* Manchester Guardian May 24 1892

More from the Royal Herbert and that unknown nurse

"Myself" date unknown

Now while I am pretty sure where this picture outside the Royal Herbert  was taken I am no nearer to finding the identity of the nurse.*

The caption just says “myself” and while there are plenty of others in which she appears none have her name.

They all come from collection of photographs she compiled into an album of the staff and patients of the Royal Herbert during the Great War.

These picture books were an important part of the life of the hospitals and cover both military hospitals and those run by the Red Cross and St John Ambulance.

Some like this one are just photographs, but others contain comments, poems and drawings from men recovering from wounds and illnesses.

"Sister Heard and myself"

They represent an important part of the men’s recovery and while many of the names of the staff and patients are lost some are recorded and can be tracked.

In the case of John Henry Harrington De Graves of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who appears in an autograph book for a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham my friend Susan researched the Canadian side of his life both before and after the Great War.**

In time I am sure we will be able to do the same for some of the men and nurses of the Royal Herbert.

What makes this book just that bit more interesting is that the pictures include some from Gallipoli showing our unnamed nurse at Salonika.

So there you have it, a history book all on its own, which just leaves me to say I will be doing more research and to thank David Harrop from whose collection the album comes.

The Royal Herbert, date unknown

Location; Woolwich, London







Pictures; from the Royal Hebert collection, 1915-16 courtesy of David Harrop

*The Royal Herbert, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Royal%20Herbert%20Hospital 

**The Man Behind the Autograph,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-man-behind-autograph.html

When the unthinkable had to be embraced ….. invasion 1940

I don’t know how I would have conducted myself had I been alive in 1940, after the Fall of France, and the imminent threat of a German invasion.

Firing postions, 1940

If like now I was 75, I might just have been able to fall back on my own military knowledge gained perhaps from a spell in the Volunteer reserve, and may be during the Great War.

Of course, if I was younger, I suspect that knowledge would have been quite limited.

Either way I guess I would have been apprehensive and if I am honest a bit scared.

But I hope I would have joined the Local Defence Volunteers which everyone knows as the Home Guard.

It was an armed civilian militia and was active from 1940 till it was stood down in 1944, by which time 1.5 million local volunteers had joined its ranks.

Most people today are familiar with the force and may veer towards the comic portrayal of them through Dad’s Army.  Young men and old men, as well as those unfit for military service, who trained with broom sticks and homemade bombs and created their own armoured cars.

But that is not to ignore the commitment and determination of citizens who fully lived up to that line “cometh the hour, cometh the man”, which of course is not to dismiss those women who served in the forces, drove ambulances, and other “first response” groups.

The degree to which the Home Guard made itself ready is witnessed by the many handbooks, most produced by ex- soldiers which were practical guides to warfare for the civilian.

Home Guard Drill, 1940

Rifle Training for War, a textbook for Local Defence Volunteers by Captain Ernest H. Robinson, ran to four editions during July 1940, while Home Guard Drill and Battle Drill by John Brophy was reprinted eleven times between November1940 and August 1943.

They were cheap and small enough to fit into a pocket to be read in the lunch hour or in the evenings.

I have a copy of each, along with the more interesting, New Ways of War, by Tom Wintringham, who in in the forward to his book argued “that war is not a difficult mystery” to be left to soldiers.  Today it is the duty of all citizens of a democracy to understand the business of fighting for a People’s War [which] is the only effective answer to Totalitarian War”.*

He had fought in the Great War, gone to Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, later joining and commanding the British Battalion of the International Brigade.

After Spain with the outbreak of the Second World War he volunteered for the British army who rejected him because he was a Communist.

A new way for the Home Guard

Not daunted he opened a private Home Guard training school at Osterley Park, London which taught the skills of guerrilla warfare, but again because of his political views he was side-lined by the army, and he resigned from the Home Guard in 1941.

How to do it, 1940

There is much more including his founding of the Common Wealth Party, received 48 percent of the vote at the Midlothian and Peebles Northern by-election in February 1943, previously a safe Tory seat.

In the 1945 general election he stood in the Aldershot constituency, the Labour Party candidate standing down to give him a clear race against the incumbent Conservative MP His wife Kitty stood in the same Midlothian constituency that he had come so close to winning two years earlier, but neither was elected.

After the war Wintringham and many of the founders of Common Wealth left and joined the Labour Party, suggesting the dissolving of Commonwealth.**

Leaving me just to set myself the task of reading his short book New Ways of War, and perhaps comparing it with the other two handbooks.

Pictures; from Rifle Training for War, a textbook for Local Defence Volunteers by Captain Ernest H. Robinson, 140, and New Ways of War, Penguin Special, 1940

* Tom Wintringham,  New Ways of War, Tom Wintringham, Penguin Special, 1940

** Tom Wintringham, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wintringham

Travels with my ironing board …. in two countries over six decades

When the history of domestic ironing is written due consideration should be given not only to the historic location, and source of power but also to that abomination which was the drip-dry shirt.

Where ever I put my ironing board, 2023

I can speak with authority, given that I am old enough to remember grandmother using that pre-electrical iron, which was heavy, required at least two so that as one was being used the other sat heating up. 

Hoovermatic poster, circa mid 1960s

I know that very early on some irons were designed to take hot coal or charcoal, and that tailors and in large homes there were specially designed ironing stoves which would take a number or irons in racks.

The hidden trick was to make sure these irons stayed clean given their proximity to dirty fuel.

Go back further in time and there were paddles, presses, box mangles and rolling pins all designed to take away the wrinkles.

By the time I was growing up in the 1950s some of that drudgery had been banished in our house, with mum acquiring a range of different washing machines from the simple hot tub powered by electricity, to the “Service” rotating machine with powered mangle.

Iron power from the ceiling, circa 1950s

This later device was the bees’ knees of washing day but still required mum to hand fill it with water and empty it.  Only in the mid-1960s did we get the Hoovermatic programmed washing machine.  

As for the ironing, mum was also up there with technology and had an electric iron, but this was the 1950s, and we lived in a house which was already eighty years old and built before domestic electricity with just a handful of power points.

So, like most homes, mum powered the iron and other devices with an adapter which fitted into a light fitting in the ceiling.

Simple, effective and maybe by today’s standards a tad scarry.

An iron with a view, 2022

But it all worked.

And with that same pragmatism, I adopted the practice of ironing in the garden during the summer months, which was not only pleasant but had the added bonus of giving me a suntan without ever having to buy travellers cheques or jet off to somewhere hot.

A little earlier in the mid 1960s I had flirted with the bri nylon drip dry shirts.

They dried quickly, needed no ironing and hung from the drying rack suspended from the ceiling in the kitchen.  It was the perfect solution, which involved a quick rinse in the washing up bowl, and then was left to drip happily dry all night into the sink.

The downside was that sometimes they smelt of the cooking, quickly stained under the arm pits and got warm in hot weather, added to which they were a butt of classroom humour.

I have to confess I now no longer do the ironing in the sun, and have long since given up “doing underwear”, and as l plough through a pile of  stuff gazing out of the window listening to Radio 4, I am reminded of at least one ironing holiday in Sardinia, accompanied by wild boar but that’s for another time.

Silhouette with ironing board, 2017

Suffice to say we did import our wooden ironing board from Italy where half the family live and who would never entertain a metal one.

Such is one-upmanship in the world of ironing.

Location. a time and place before now

Pictures; Six decades of ironing, 1955-2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

A little bit of Manchester in Eltham Palace

Now I do miss Eltham, it was where I grew up and it is a place I was very happy.

But at the age of 19 I went north following a girlfriend who had started a course at Manchester Polytechnic, which on reflection was not the best way for me to choose a degree course especially as she left for London just three months later.

The Sentry, 2007

I stayed and the city has been my home ever since and I do think of it as home, but like all ex pats I have never forgotten Eltham and in particular Well Hall.

All of which made the discovery that one of the City’s war memorials was replicated in miniature and sits on a table in the study of Eltham Palace a source for thought.

I came across it recently while working on the new book.*

The original was commissioned by S & J Watts to commemorate those who worked for the company and died in the Great War.

The memorial was erected  in 1922 in the main entrance of the company’s building on Portland Street.

The Sentry is a bronze sculpture, which stands in an arched niche just inside the building and faces a marble plaque commemorating the dead.

It depicts the sentry standing on duty, and was commissioned from the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger who also designed the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, London.

Eltham Palace, 1961

And to my surprise and pleasure there is a small version of the figure in the study of Eltham Palace, where it was displayed by Stephen Courtauld, who like Mr Jagger was a member of the Artists' Rifles.

So there you have it a little bit of Manchester in the heart of Eltham.

But I can’t close without a reference to the building which holds the orginal statue.

This  is the  large, Victorian Grade II listed building known as Watts Warehouse.

It opened in 1856 as a textile warehouse for the wholesale drapery business of S & J Watts, and was the largest single-occupancy textile warehouse in Manchester.

Today the building is part of the Britannia Hotels chain.

Watts Warehouse, 1973

One source has referred to its ornate style as being typical of
“the extravagant confidence of many Mancunian warehouses of this period, but the Watts Warehouse is notable for its peculiarly eclectic design. Designed in the form of a Venetian palazzo, the building has five storeys, each decorated in a different style – Italian Renaissance, Elizabethan, French Renaissance and Flemish – and roof pavilions featuring large Gothic wheel windows.

The interior was similarly lavish in its decoration, with a sweeping iron cantilever staircase, balconied stairwell, and mahogany counters for displaying merchandise.”*

And that makes it a sort of palace.

Location, Manchester and Eltham in London

Pictures; the Sentry, Cnbrb, 2007 Wikipedia Commons, Eltham Palace, from Eltham Palace Ministry of Works Guide Book, 1961and the Watts Warehouse, 1973, m56859 , courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

** Watts Warehouse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Warehouse

Of grand pictures, the 1893 Cup Final and the jubilee of the 1832 Moorcock murders....... more from the camera of Mr Banks

Inside the Ryalands, circa 1900

Now Mr Banks can never be said to have missed an opportunity.

He was one of those self made Victorians who rose from humble beginnings to become a celebrated photographer capping his career with that seal of official approval which comes from the title “By Royal Appointment.”

He has caught my interest ever since my friend Sally began posting his photographs of Manchester in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From 1873 and into the next century he recorded the great events of the city, along with the everyday life on the streets and portraits of the good and worthy of Manchester.

And ever mindful that all this was a job he was quick to turn his pictures into books.

Added to this he had a range of studios across the city and beyond including his first in Uppermill and one in Blackpool.

Much of his work like those of the newly opened Town Hall and later the Ship Canal captured that mix of civic pride and entrepreneurial drive which was the age.

Watching the 1893 Cup Final

But he was in touch with what people wanted and in the collections there are plenty of pictures of well known Manchester Streets and popular events, like this one at the Manchester Athletic Ground in Fallowfield.

“The Stadium opened in 1892 and I believe this photo is taken at the cup final match between Wolves and Everton in 1893 which according to one report had an attendance of 45,000 which was quite something given that he stadium had a capacity of 15,000. Fallowfield stadium was demolished in 1994 and is now Richmond Park Halls of Residence.”*

Mrs Simpson, circa 1882

Not that these were all.  In the early years he advertised a range of Valentine cards and continued to do the real commercial business of the individual and group portrait.

And by one of those wonderful coincidences I have two of the Simpson family who lived in Hulme, and ran a dairy business spanning the century from 1850 to the 1940s.

They are typical of the work Mr Banks produced and all of them come with his trade card on the reverse allowing you to clock the addresses of all his studios with a handy reference number should you wish to reorder your picture.

Here they are the grand and not so grand, striking the classic pose and using the studio props to celebrate a moment in their life.

The identities of many are lost with time but a few have survived with some details written on the back

Moorcock Inn, 1882

But as much as I find these fascinating it is the public pictures which draw you into his work and for me this one from 1882 near where he set up his first studio.

It is of the ‘Moorcock Inn‘, Bills o’ Jacks, Greenfield and was taken during the jubilee of the Moorcock Murders, which had happened on April 2nd 1832 when a landlord and his gamekeeper son were violently murdered at a remote pub on the edge of the bleak moorland above Greenfield near Saddleworth.**

But that of course is another story for another time.

But ever mindful of its commercial possibilities Mr Banks was there to exploit that Victorian passion for a gruesome murder and no doubt hoped that the jubilee of that event would add to his professional and financial standing.

Next; a little bit more on his life and some of his early adventures.

Pictures; picture of the inside of the Ryland’s Library, circa 1900 and  Manchester Athletic Ground, 1893,  courtesy of Sally Dervan, Ms Simpson from the collection of Ann Love date unknown, and the ‘Moorcock Inn‘, Bills o’ Jacks, Greenfield, 1882, courtesy of Saddleworth Museum, http://www.saddleworthmuseum.co.uk/

*Sally Dervan

**The Bill o' Jacks Murders, Mysterious Britain & Ireland,
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-manchester/folklore/the-bill-o-jacks-murders.html

New people new ideas, Chorlton in 1895

“The influx of a new population of lower middle class city workers who have to find room to live in the new houses erected on open spaces where a few years ago there were green pastures and golden corn fields.  These people have brought with them a new political outlook consistent with the great advance of Labour in recent years.”*

It was of course one of the outcomes of the expansion of housing across south Manchester at the end of the 19th century  that new political ideas would follow the new people settling here.

Now I have no doubt that radical politics had long been discussed in the township.

For a while the radical politician Thomas Walker had lived at Barlow Hall at the end of the 18th century and there would have been plenty of people who travelled into Manchester who would have been aware of the torrent of ideas circulating during the years after the French Revolution and well into the middle of the 1800s and at the very least would have discussed them in their homes and the pubs and beer shops.

The radical journalist Alexander Somerville walked through the lanes of Chorlton in 1847 talking to our farmers and in the decade before had been charged by the Anti Corn Law League with the task of arguing for an end to trade protectionism and may have made other visits.

Thirty years before his visit there is evidence that people had walked from Urmston and Stretford to Peterloo in 1819** and I am sure they would have been joined by weavers and labourers from Chorlton, Withington and the other townships on the southern edge of the city.

But at present all that is conjecture, although we do know that in the 1835 General Election the Whigs got 27% of the vote against the Tories here in Chorlton.  Of course the total male population was only 26 men and neither of the Whig candidates were radicals, but on the other hand they were the “progressive party” and faced an onslaught of voter intimidation from the Tories during the campaign and on the day of the election.

Sixty years later and the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Socialist Society was active.  In 1895 they had complained bitterly to the Manchester Guardian that they had been prevented from holding a meeting in the Public Hall which was a “hall built for the public, consecrated to the common good, free from the trammels of faction, open for the use of all” and following this had met the same response from “every other room belonging to a public body.”***

And so were forced to meet “on certain nights around lamp posts”**** to spread their political message.

By 1906 they at least they were afforded the same rights as other political groups and had been given permission to hold two meetings on the village green.

But it was not till 1928 that the Labour Party contested its first local election here in Chorlton achieving 1,457 votes with 14% of the total vote, and still managed 12% a month later when a second election was run.

Now this is about it.  There will be election material, more reports and stories out there which will help throw a light on how the township developed politically in the early years of the last century.

Picture; Solidarity, Walter Crane, 1887, and Percentage  of the total vote in the Chorlton Local Election November 1928

.
*Davies, Rhys. J., Socialism in Surburbia, 1930
** On an August day in 1819, anything between 60,000 and 80,000 men, women and children had assembled in St Peter’s Field to listen to the case for reforming the representation of Parliament.  Just before 2 in the afternoon a unit of Cavalry charged into the crowd with their sabres.  The deaths resulting from that charge have never been exactly established but sources claimed between 11 and 15 people were killed and up to 700 injured.
*** C. Fletcher, Chorlton-cum- Hardy Socialist Society, Manchester Guardian, October 23 1895
****, Davies, p7

A lost Eltham Palace ........... nu 3 Eltham Palace from the north west

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Picture; Eltham Palace from the north west from an old engraving, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-story-of-eltham-palace.html

** The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

How we shopped on Beech Road in 1969 and thirty years later

First the apology, which is simply I have lost the names of the authors of this shopping survey, but I hope they won’t mind me reproducing.

It was passed to be my Bernard Leech a few years ago, who I hope can supply their names.

But for now, here it is ……… how we shopped on Beech Road in 1969, and 1999.

And today of course a new survey would reveal the massive changes which have seen retailing outlets retreat to be replaced by a mix of bars, cafes, and restaurants with some gift shops and just the odd traditional shop.

Not rocket science, perhaps or even a remarkable set of observations, but still a bit of history.

Location; Chorlton











Picture; shopping survey, Beech Road, 1969 & 1999

At St Chad's in Saddleworth with the remarkable Mr Banks sometime in 1880

Now I am back with Mr Banks that remarkable photographer. 

Selling a photograph circa 1880

He was one of those self made Victorians who rose from humble beginnings to become a celebrated photographer capping his career with that seal of official approval which comes from the title “By Royal Appointment.”

He has caught my interest ever since my friend Sally began posting his photographs of Manchester in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From 1873 and into the next century he recorded the great events of the city, along with the everyday life on the streets and portraits of the good and worthy of Manchester.

But here is one of those pictures he took of Saddleworth where he had his first studio.

The studio dated from 1867 and this picture of St Chad’s from around 1880.

St Chad's today

Now I don’t often do a then and now but I couldn’t resist in this case.

So here is his picture which appeared on photographs he sold  and the church as it is now courtesy of Saddleworth Churches.*

And because the pictures deserve a bit more here is the story of the church.

"There has been a place of Christian worship on the Parish Church site since 1215 AD, when the first Saddleworth Church was established as a chapel of ease as part of the Rochdale Parish, but in time became the possession of Whalley Abbey. 

St Chad's in the 1880s

Under the suppression of the churches by Henry VIII, the Abbey had to submit Quick Chapel€™, as it was then called, to the jurisdiction of Rochdale and more recently in 1866, patronage was transferred to the Bishop of Manchester.

The current grade 2* listed re-build, which stands in it’s own conservation area, is late Georgian. 

The interior, which includes the original gallery, has a pleasant warmth to it emanating a surprising light and colour. 

The stained glass tells the tale of the wildness of the weather in this area and the church does possess a fine Capronier depiction of the Visit of the Magi.

How to find us: Saddleworth St Chad Church, Church Road, Uppermill, Oldham OL3 6LW"

So there you have it a little bit more on Mr Banks and the story of the church he snapped.

 Pictures; St Chad’s circa 1880s, Robert Banks, courtesy of Saddleworth Museum, http://www.saddleworthmuseum.co.uk/ and St Chad’s today courtesy of Saddleworth Churches, http://saddleworthteam-cofe.org.uk/contact/

*Saddleworth Churches, http://saddleworthteam-cofe.org.uk/contact/

The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 15. .........

 Now I am pretty confident that this one will bring up a rich collection of memories.

It continued trading into the 1980s and was a wonderful place where the chesses were piled high and there was pretty much any cheese you wanted.

And l have been corrected by John Paul Moran who tells me it continued trading well in to the 1990s. Thanks John.

Location; Wilbraham Road










Picture; the bacon and cheese shop, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Out with the photographer Robert Banks on the streets of Manchester sometime before 1912

Now I can be fairly confident that Mr Banks took this picture of Oxford Street sometime before 1912, but more about that later.

In the meantime I shall start with the man himself who had one of those remarkable careers which seemed to epitomise the self made Victorian man.*

He stands alongside some of our other Manchester photographers.**

He was born in 1847, he father was a journeyman carpenter and at the age of 15 he was working as a woollen piecer in a mill.*

And yet within a few years he had become an illustrator on the Oldham Chronicle and at 21 had opened a photographic business on the High Street in Uppermill all of which was but a prelude to a successful career in Manchester.

Having set up business in the city in 1873, he quickly won a series of commissions and as they say never looked back.

During the rest of the century and into the next he photographed many of the most important events that occurred in the city and was quick to issue these in collections for sale.

And never one to miss an opportunity I am told that having taken pictures of the unveiling of the statue of Queen Victoria he made a special journey to Windsor Castle and presented them to the Royal Family.***

But he will also be remembered for a wonderful collection of street scenes like this one of “Oxford Street from Whitworth Street. [Showing] on the left St Mary’s Hospital and Total’s Warehouse, and on the right the Theatre of Varieties and St James’s Hall, with St Peter’s Church in the distance.”

It is a scene few now remember.

St Peter’s Church and the hospital were demolished a long time ago and the elaborate facade of what is now the Palace Theatre disappeared behind those drab tiles in 1957.

And what no one will now  recognise is the building beyond the theatre with its tall clock tower, for this was St James’s Hall, built in 1884, closed in 1907 and briefly reopened as a cinema in 1908 and was replaced in 1912 by St James’s Buildings which still stand on the site today.

Something of what the hall was like can be seen from the Gould’s Fire Insurance Map which dates from around 1900.

But that is enough for now.  My friend Sally has kindly given me more of Mr Bank’s pictures from a collection she bought and I now have a promise of some of his earlier photographs taken in Saddleworth which the Museum there has promised to pass over.

So it rather looks as if there will be lots more of Robert Banks to come.

And as often happens, someone has helped with the story.  Lee Hutchins has written that "St Peters Church in the distance was taken down in January 1907 and St Mary's Hospital to the left was completed in 1901 so taken between 1901 and 1906"


Pictures;, Oxford Street before 1912, courtesy of Sally Dervan and detail of St James’s Hall from Gould’s Fire Insurance Map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Robert Banks, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Robert%20Banks

**Manchester artist and photographers, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20artist%20and%20photographers

***from a conversation with James Stanhope-Brown who also told me that sadly there is no reference in the Royal collection to the event.  He has also published Manchester From the Robert Banks Collection, in 2011, the History Press

A lost Eltham Palace nu 2 .............. The Banqueting Hall in 1782

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Picture; the Banqueting Hall West end, from an engraving in Archeologica 1772, , from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Eltham Palace, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-story-of-eltham-palace.html
** The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

The remarkable Mr Banks from factory worker to photographer by Royal Appointment

Oldham Street looking towards New Cross

There is something magic about this picture of Oldham Street which dates from around 1900.

And I am not alone in thinking this.  My friend Sally commented that “the image draws you in” and certainly you feel right at the heart of the city on a busy working day.

We are actually just past Hilton Street looking up towards Great Ancoats Street and New Cross.

Off to our right at numbers 56-58 was Abel Heywood & Sons, the booksellers who had in their time published some of the most important books on Manchester.

Beside them at number 60 was Marks and Spencer Ltd and beyond were the businesses of White the manufacturing jewellers whose sign dominated the skyline and the equally impressive sign of Crosby Walker Ltd whose draper’s shop stretched across numbers 82-86 Oldham Street.

In between were a branch of Maypoles’ the grocery chain, a Yates’ Wine lodge, and assorted photographer’s tailors, coffee merchants and confectioners.

My own favourite, at number 62, is the premise of Miss Isabella, servants registry office which is a reminder that this is still the age when even relatively humble homes aspired to at least one servant.

What is all the more  remarkable is the number of photographers who were offering their services in this small stretch running from Hilton Street up to Warwick Street but then photography had come of age and one of its best exponent was none other than Robert Banks who took this picture.

He had been commissioned by the Corporation as early as 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

Many of these appear in an old and battered book which Sally picked up recently.

The cover and binding had long ago been lost but the pictures were intact and they are a wonderful record of our city just a century and a bit ago.

Here are celebrated some of the great achievements of the Victorian period, from the towering textile warehouses, to the impressive public buildings and in between street scenes of everyday life.

But few now know much about Mr Banks.  Back in 2011 a collection of his images was published by the History Press along with a short biography but the book sadly is now out of print.*

All of which is a shame because his was an interesting life and reflects that classic view of the self made Victorian.

He was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

Reception Room, Town Hall

Now that move of course glosses over a lot because the step from illustrator to photographic studio I doubt could have been easy but at present I have no idea at the capital needed to begin such a venture or how he might have financed it.

Suffice to say that by 1873 he had moved to Manchester, set up home at 73 Alexandra Road in Moss Side and was renting a studio at 73 Market Street.

Over the next thirty years the business moved from Market Street to New Cross, and on to Franklin Street and Victoria Street and in 1903 was at 126 Market Street.

Likewise the family home was variously on Alexandra Street, and later Mytton Street, but the buildings have long since been cleared.

That said it may be possible to locale the studio in Uppermill and there remains the census records from 1861 onwards and the Rate Books along with possible references in the Manchester Guardian.

I rather think I will also contact his biographer just because Mr Banks is an interesting chap who began in a factory and  along the way was given  the title By Royal Appointment.

Pictures; courtesy of Sally Dervan

Contributory research from James Stanhope-Brown

*Manchester From the Robert Banks Collection, James Stanhope-Brown, 2011, the History Press

A lost Eltham Palace nu 1 ................ The Banqueting Hall

Now I have decided to run a few pictures of what Eltham Palace looked like in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It had long been abandoned as a home for royalty and its grand days were a thing of the past.

The occasional tourist up from London called in along with an interested artist keen to capture its former splendour but that was about it.

All very different from now, and a prelude to more stories of the building and its history.*

But in the meantime here then over the next few days are the Palace as you might have seen it during the early 19th century, all taken from that wonderful book on the history of Eltham published in 1909.**

Location; Eltham, London

Picture; The Banqueting Hall used as a stables from an old engraving, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Eltham Palace, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Eltham%20Palace

** The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

A parish magazine ..... a heap of parochial news ..... and Mr. Lascelles's superior wall tiles ...... Chorlton 1903

Now by chance and with the help of Ida Bradshaw, I am back in 1903, trawling the pages of the March edition of the St Clement’s Parish Magazine.

There will be those who mumble that it is a journey which yields little, but not so.

Contained in its 20 pages are a mix of parochial news, some uplifting stories, accounts of the early Christian Church, and advice for children, along with  biblical questions, a hymn for missionaries and a problem for Draught players.

All of which are fascinating, but a century and a bit on, it is the adverts littered through its pages that make the magazine, a time machine.

In all there are eleven, some advertising national branded goods, but most from local tradesmen, including the butcher R. A. Cooper at 25 Barlow Moor Road, specializing in "Corned Beef and Pickled Tongue", and promising “family orders promptly attended to” and William Mellor, Carting Contractor and Coal Merchant, from 1 Hardy  Avenue whose “Coal Delivered in Bags".

Added to these was Thomas Birrell who was a “Joiner and Builder and General Repairer of Property” with a workshop on the “The Green near the Old Church”, “Estimates given for Greenhouses”.

But the one which drew me in was Geo. E. Lascelles “Dealer in Fish, Game, Poultry, 34, Wilbraham Road, And At Hobson Hall Poultry Farm Egerton Road, Speciality; New Laid Eggs, Farm Fed Chickens, Ducklings, Turkeys, Guinea Fowls Best of Everything at Lowest Possible Prices”.

Now what makes Mr. Lascelles just that bit ahead of his fellow advertisers is that his shop has already featured in several stories recently.

No 34 will be known to many as the home of Shareen Fashions, which supplied school uniforms, and  much more at decent prices, by a family who were always most helpful.

And it was during the alterations by the new owners that I spotted some beautiful period tiles.

Given that they were of fish and poultry I assumed they were put there by Mr. Worthington Brice who was listed as a fishmonger at the property in 1909.

But now I am not so sure, given that George Lascelles was doing the business with fish, chickens, ducklings, and much more six years earlier.

All of which may seem a very nerdy preoccupation, and I have to concede it is, but in the process it all adds to the story of where we live.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; extracts from the St Clement’s Parish Magazine, March 1st, 1903, courtesy of Ida Bradshaw, and poultry tiles, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Of paddling pools and vanished pastimes in Chorlton Park

Now if you are of a certain age you will remember the paddling pool in Chorlton Park.

Now this is not to be confused with the big open air swimming pool which was a feature of the park when it first opened, and was 50 yards long, 21 yards wide running from 5 feet 3 inches at the deep end to 2 feet and 6 inches at the shallow end.

It is a story for the blog for another time but does appear in that book I wrote with Mr Topping and entitled
The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, which came out last year.

So back to the paddling pool.  Until yesterday I only had the one picture of the paddling pool which dates from the 1930s, but yesterday Roger Shelly sent over this one, which he took in the 1960s or 70s.

Leaving me just to include the map from 1933showing all the features of the newly built park.

Location; Chorlton Park

Picture; the paddling pool, circa 1960s/70s from the collection of Roger Shelly, and detail from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1933-34

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 10 Four Yards

Now I was never much good at maths or for that matter being able to make judgments about distance.

So I can’t say whether the distance between John Dalton Street and King Street is Four Yards.

To be fair the Laurent’s map  of 1793 suggests that it might have only run from John Dalton Street to South Kings Street and our little stretch might have not actually been part of the original.

Look closely at its alignment now and back 223 years ago and it doesn’t quite match up.

All of which just leaves someone to go and measure the distance or better still unearth some dusty document which gives a definitive answer.

So for now I will continue to use it as a alternative to a very busy Cross Street.

Location; Manchester



Picture; Four Yards, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Magic nights in Well Hall

I can picture the poster now.

It featured a guitar and a set of unlaced boots, was finely drawn in black ink resting on a white background, and advertised a folk and blues night at Well Hall Peasaunce.

Its design and the event perfectly appealed to a 16 year old and it ended up on the wall behind my bed and stayed there  long after I had left Well Hall Road.

As for the concert it was all the poster promised and while I have long ago forgotten the names of the artists the evening has stayed with me.  It was one of those memorable nights which began with the setting.

To the right of the stage was the southern side of the Tudor Barn with the moat running alongside it and to the left were the gardens with the railway station beyond.

And as the dusk turned into night the odd break in the performance was filled by the sound of trains passing through Eltham and the noise of cars coming down Well Hall Road.

I remember the concert being full and while I did go to a few more  nothing compared with that one.

And that got me reflecting on what makes a perfect memory.

We all have them bits of our past however trivial which stick with us and bring back home.

Going back even further and before we even moved into Well Hall Road I can still remember laying in bed and watching the night sky lit by the blue flash of what must have been a train at Queens Road Station.

I say that but the blue flash may have been caused by something entirely different but it remains with me even now.

As does the day sometime in 1964 when on a first adventure into Woolwich I discovered by sheer chance the ferry and like so many others before and since it caught my imagination.

Now there is nothing unusual in any of these memories.  Since I first posted a story about the concerts in the Pleasaunce others have told me of their magical nights on those hard metal seats listening to the music by the Barn.

And in the same way the Ferry remains one of those bits of so many people's past along beside the market stalls, a traffic filled Powis Street and of course trips to Hind’s in the High Street.

Not that this is not  just another bit of nostalgic tosh but an appeal for those memories, with if possible a picture and better still a story, like the one from my friend Jean on a tram heading home to Eltham with a live eel bought by her grandmother on the market.

And these memories however episodic and disjointed are all part of our history.  Put them together and you have a set of stories to tell your grandchildren.

Location, Eltham & Woolwich, London

Picture; Tudor Barn, Well Hall courtesy of Scott MacDonald, 2013 and the floral display 2014, from the collection of Chrissy Rose

Shirley Collins .... Desert Island Discs .... one to do on the wireless today

 I first heard the folk singer Shirley Collins on Desert Island Discs last year and caught it again today.*

And what a wonderful programme it is.

"Shirley Collins first enjoyed success as one of the leading figures in the British folk revival of the 1960s. She initially performed with her sister, Dolly Collins, and also collaborated with other folk luminaries to create some of the era’s most beloved albums. In the past decade she has made an acclaimed return to the concert stage and the recording studio.

Shirley was born in Sussex in 1935. She can still recall how her grandfather used to sing folk songs to comfort her while they were sheltering during German air raids in the early 1940s.

Alongside her career as a singer, in the 1950s she travelled to the American South with Alan Lomax, where they made field recordings of blues and folk musicians, helping to create a significant archive.

Later in her performing career, Shirley found that she could no longer sing, following a distressing betrayal in her private life. She stepped away from music and was silent for many years, taking on other work, including a stint in a job centre Then, in her 80s, she found her voice again. In 2016 she released her first new album after a gap of almost four decades, and she has since released two more albums.

Presenter Lauren Laverne"

Now you either like folk music, or sit in a corner pouring derision on it.

Me, I have been a fan for sixty years, having made the transition from the protest songs of Bob Dylan, Phil Orchs and Tom Paxton to Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Ewan MacColl and back into traditional English music.

And when you go back to those songs in the words of Shirley Collins you are experiencing "The archaeology of music [and of songs that] tell you about the time it happened"

Which for someone who loves history is a perfect way to go back into the past

Location; Radio 4

Picture; cover album of Archangel Hill, Shirley Colllins, 2023

*Shirely Collins, folk singer, Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001pf7y