On rediscovering where you were born ............. The General Lying in Hospital at Lambeth

My hospital, 2007

We all have little bits of our past which we stumble across.

Most are too personal to warrant even a sentence in a history book but sometimes you know that there is a story and it is story which will pretty much touch lots of people.

I had never bothered looking up where I was born after all given that it happened on an October day in 1949 I just assumed like so many places in my life the hospital would long ago have vanished replaced by a dreary 1950’s office block or worse a car park.

But the General Lying in Hospital at Lambeth on York Road is still there although it closed for business in 1971.

Now if I am to be strictly accurate the building that saw me enter the world was the second Lying in Hospital.

The first opened on Westminster Bridge Road was replaced by my hospital in 1828 and in its time according to one source 150,000 babies were born there.*

All of which puts me in good company and no doubt once the story hits the web there will be some who come forward with their own stories.

Not that there is much to mine and until I began digging I had even got the name wrong believing that it was the Royal Lying in Hospital.

Nor do I have any memory of this grand building or whether I visited it when my four sisters were born.

I know that after its closure it fell into disrepair, went on to the Buildings at Risk Register and finally a shed load of money was spent on its restoration only for it to be sold to a hotel chain.

Perhaps it’s time for me to book a room there although I hardly think I will end up anywhere near where I resided 69 years ago.***

Picture; the General Lying in Hospital, August 27 2007, © Elliot Simpson

* The General Lying in Hospital, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Lying-In_Hospital

**York Road, BHO British History on line http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol23/pp40-44 

***London, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/London

That lost picture of the Royal Oak in 1902 with young Thomas Kelsey

This is a picture of the old Royal Oak I have never seen before.

The caption gives a date of 1902 and refers to “the boy Thomas Kelsey, son of the landlord of the inn at the time.”

Now it is very unusual to be able to name a person in a Chorlton photograph from the early 20th century.

Usually we are just presented with a sea of faces whose identities are lost in time.

But this is different.

Thomas was born in 1893 in Salford and his parents ran the Duke of York pub at 186 Regent Road, before moving in 1895 to the Royal Oak here in Chorlton.

The pub trade ran deep in the family, Thomas’s father was working in the Glass House on Regent Road by 1881 when he was 18 years old and his parents had run a beer shop just off Regent Road.

But what makes this picture all the more interesting is the detail which it reveals about the pub.

The Royal Oak was originally a beer shop which dated back to the early 1830s and consisted of little more than four rooms.

But what intrigues me is the building behind which seems to have been added on by the 1890s.

The OS map for 1894 and 1907 show that pub had been enlarged and the 1911 census return records that there were eight rooms.

Nor is that all because George Kelsey appears to have been more than just a publican because the sign to our right announces that he was also in the business of “CABS, HANSOMS” and offered a LIVERY STATION.”

By 1921 the secondary business had morphed in "Kelsey Brothers" with Thomas describing himself as a "motor mechanic", a job he was still doing in 1939, by which time he was living with his wife Muriel and daughter at 6 Rippenden Avenue.

And  the premise had relocated to  what had been Renshaw's Buildings which had once been entirely residential but at some time the front had been converted into a garage.

This building was demolished sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s and replaced by the present Royal Oak Pub, but in one picture the name Kelsey Brothers appears over the garage.

His father and family were still in the old Royal Oak serving up beer and cheer in 1921.

And like so much of the early 20th century the Kelsey family have progressed with the times, so while George Kelsey had run a beer shop his son had moved into the "motor trade" and his granddaughter was a clerk dealing with W

That said there is that finger print just below the sign, now that would be a real detective story.

Picture, the Royal Oak, 1902, m50447, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Barlow Moor Road circa 1920s from the collection of Rita Bishop

On Stretford Station with a bit of our railway past

It will soon be nearly a quarter of a century since the last train ran from Stretford station which means that memories of a time before the tram will be fading

Stretford Station, April 1961

I briefly used the station back in the 1970s and had no idea of its history or the railway line.

It had been opened in 1849 by the Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway and was in part designed to transport food grown in Altrincham and Stretford into the heart of Manchester and in time would challenge the Duke's Canal as the main means of carrying heavy goods in to Manchester.

I have no doubt it would have created quite a stir.

The men who built the line were viewed at best with suspicion and at worst with fear.  They had a well deserved reputation for hard drinking and rough behaviour which is no surprise given the dangers of the work they undertook.

Central Station, April 1961

And there may well have been a few of  our farm a labourers who were taken on to do some of the least skilled work while some of our farmers and market gardeners would have taken advantage of the line to move their crops to the Manchester markets.

But its impact was also to start a wave of house building along Edge Lane.

The train offered the quickest way into town and allowed those who earned a living in the city to escape to what was still the countryside.

Of course by the time I used the train Edge Lane and the surrounding area had long lost any semblance of countryside, but the station still looked like an old fashioned railway, which is where my fiend Ann comes into the story.

She “found these the other day, tucked away. Stretford station in 1961, and Manchester Central, probably a similar date. I used to travel from Stretford to Oxford Road Station, spending my time on the journey drawing the other passengers.”

And so after sixty-two years a little bit of what an old railway station looked like is here to see again.

Now that is not so daft given that Stretford has become a Metro Stop with shiny yellow trams and Central having long lost its trains is now an Exhibition Centre.

Pictures; Stretford and Central Stations, April 1961 courtesy of Ann Love

So ......how did they change Piccadilly Railway Station approach?

Now if you are curious to know what happened to the buildings to the left of the British Railways tower you need do no more than look down at its companion picture.

Location; Piccadilly Railway Station approach

Picture Piccadilly Railway Station approach, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY and in 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking for Dad at Eltham Fire Station in 1908

We will never know whether Lizzie’s aunt appreciated this picture postcard of our Fire Station.

But as she had been receiving regular such pictures of Eltham, I rather hope she did.

The added bonus was that there in the photograph was Lizzie’s Dad, which prompted Lizzie to ask “Do you recognise dad?

There is lots more detail but I rather think I will leave that up to you to search out.

Location; Eltham Fire Station











Picture; Eltham Fire Station,1908, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Gaze upon this tarry thing ... all you in Chorlton who want to be nostalgic

Now I am never one to stop a good story, and remain fully aware that out there, some remain nostalgic about stone setts which were once a common form of road surface.

The Beech Road sett, late 19th century

So here is one of mine. I cannot now reveal how I came to acquire it, suffice to say that once a very long time ago when Beech Road was going through an earlier tar experience, this one was about to be thrown away.

I asked if I could have it as a relic of that old Chorlton and I was given two.

It will date from I suppose the late 19th century but maybe from the 1900s.

I just don’t know.

Of course some will know and there will a minute either in the records of the old Withington UDC or Manchester Corporation, but I am not going to look.

It sits in a special place beside two handmade bricks, one dating from the late 18th century which was part of a one up one down back to back house on Miller Street and the other from that grand property which once stood on Beech Road beside Acres Road which some will still call Acres Crack.

Longford Road, circa 1900

I have to admit that the old tin potty also from Miller Street was refused entry by the family, which I suspect was for the best.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; a Chorlton stone sett from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Longford Road circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

Walking the islands ….. Greece three decades ago

It is easy to be sniffy about how things were done in the past and even more so in other countries.

So, it now seems very strange that once if you wanted to talk to someone by phone you had to go out and put coins in a machine to do so, and equally strange that packets of unflavoured crisps came with bit of salt inside a twist of blue paper.

All of which makes it less bizarre that this man should be plastering the upstairs outside window by standing on a window ledge.

Or that just down the road in the same Greek village a woman was whitewashing a wall using simple brush made from straw bundled together and tied to a stick with string.

But then back in the early 1970s just outside Seaham Harbour in the North East the scaffolding surrounding a construction consisted of old telegraph poles to which were lashed planks.

At the time I marvelled at the Heath Robinson approach to building but then I had yet to visit Greece.

As I said it is easy to be sniffy, but how things were done in the past was just different.

Location; Greece

Pictures; doing it differently, Greece, 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

How we shopped in 1961 …. from corner shop to supermarket

If you were born in the first half of the last century you will have experienced one of those transformations in how we shopped.

What was the present .... 1962

Long before online shopping, and the big out of town store, there was the appearance of the supermarket which with its self-service and discounted prices squeezed out the traditional small family run grocery shop, and in time also did for the butchers and the greengrocer.

Once upon a time in that age before the freezer or even the fridge, most people shopped on a daily basis at the local parade of shops, or in the market, while for the posh there was still the option to have your order delivered by the “boy on the bike”.

Our local grocer’s was Attins on Queens Road where the selection of food was limited and in the case of cheese stretched to white or red.

But of course for a seven year old there was the attraction of the broken biscuit box in front of the counter, and the fascination of watching the butter and cheese cut to order, as well as the knowledge that because you were known any short fall in the cash you had with you would be subbed by Mr. and Mrs. Attins until your next visit.

What was to be the future ..... 1961

Now we still do have corner shops, they never went away, but even they have gone up market, offer a degree of self -service and as like as not will have food from around the world, sitting beside jars of Branston and Ovaltine.

So, to celebrate both the old and the new, here is the traditional corner shop with its range of things we bought in 1961 and one of Adsega supermarkets which started with one store in Gorton in the early 1960s before expanding to 47 outlets and then being taken over by Tesco in 1965.*

Many will remember them.

Here in Chorlton they had a shop in Manchester Road, and today long after they vanished from our streets they have their own Facebook page.

But what I like about the Adsega store, is that like the traditional shops and the market stalls some of the products were displayed on the street.

Picture; shop fronts, 1961-2, 1962-3782.7, & 1962-3764.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* THE STORES THAT TESCO ATE: A LOST PRECINCT NOT SO PERFECT TEN https://mancunian1001.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/the-stores-that-tesco-ate-a-lost-precinct-not-so-perfect-ten/

Skating on the meadows in 1914

Well here we are skating on the meadows in 1914.

It was judging by the pictures and folk memory a popular activity and one that I have known about since I first washed up in Chorlton nearly 40 years ago.

But with all the arrogance of someone who had never seen it I always only half accepted that it was such a common activity.

It wasn’t that I doubted what people told me of what they remembered but more that the fields we now know as the meadows were part of a carefully managed stretch of land which did not benefit from being covered by ice.

These were the water meadows and were farmed to produce early grass which could be fed to cattle.

This involved carefully flooding and draining the land at regular intervals and always being mindful that if the water froze it would do the young grass no favours.

So farmers like Mr Higginbotham whose family had been here on the green from the early 1840s would never have been caught out by a sudden frost.

But the stories persisted that old Higginbotham at the turn of the last century did flood one of his fields to create a skating area.

Now until recently all I had to go on was one photograph and a handful of accounts all of which may have been drawn from that picture or from just one source.

But more photographs have turned up and I am inclined to fall on the side that this was a more common event than I had thought.

Mr Higginbotham may have just been caught out by events having miscalculated the weather or perhaps the field in question was no longer used as a water meadow for bringing on early grass.

Certainly within a few decades the meadows would no longer be used for this traditional way of farming, and now there is little evidence left of the drainage ditches which ran across the area.

All of which is a nice lesson in not becoming too arrogant about what you think you know, and instead as a good historian pay a lot more heed to popular folk memories.

Looking closely at the pictures it is just possible to make out a blur of a building in the background which might just be the old parish church, which in turn will fasten the image on that bit of land just beyond and to west of the modern car park

That said I do draw a line at the notion that the township is crisscrossed by hidden tunnels linking the old parish church to a pub and another running from one of our halls to another.

But that is for another time.

I shall just finish by wondering if Mr Higginbotham charged for the use of his frozen field.  I have on evidence he did but I doubt that he would have passed up such an opportunity.

Pictures; from Manchester Courier, 1914 courtesy of Sally Dervan

In the parish graveyard

I wish I had spent more time exploring the parish grave yard.

But when you are growing up wandering past the monuments to the long dead is not very high on the agenda.

And yet for the historian they are a powerful insight into what a community was like in the past and Eltham’s is no different.

Here for centuries were buried the good, the wealthy and those whose rank and occupation was such that they have left few records.

But some at least of those that lived here will be recorded both in the parish records and in the grave stones.

Not that I intend to name them or for that matter to dwell on their lives but more to reflect on what can be learnt from combining the inscriptions with those held in the church books.

Once upon a time the researcher had to visit the individual parishes, or walk through the often overgrown church plots seeking a family member or just getting a sense of things like life expectancy and the pattern of
names.

Now of course most records are held on microfilm in local history libraries and increasingly are being digitalised.

All of which makes possible for the historian  to track individuals from the comfort of a kitchen table.

Now there are those who regret this development, but I am not one of them. What once took months of slow laborious work can be undertaken in a few hours and opens up parts of the country which would otherwise be a train away.

Of course there is still a thrill at holding an old document secure in the knowledge that perhaps only a handful of people have touched its pages in two centuries.

Likewise to stand in front of the gravestone of a long lost family member is to get close to them.

All of which I think has written me into a new series of stories, matching those buried in the grounds of St John’s with the stories of their lives from the census returns, rate books and casual comments of their contemporaries.

And for all those who like a bit of homework, I recommend a visit to the parish graveyard and a walk with history.

Pictures courtesy of Jean Gammons

A night flight ... the ferry ... and heaps of Greek sun

 I was too young to have gone island hopping  across Greece in the 1960s and a decade later too busy earning a living and making a career.

Ten minutes out of the Pireaus,1981

So it wasn't till 1981 that l did the thing usually reserved for 18 year olds short on money and big on adventures.

By then l was 32, with a bank balance but doing Greece on the cheap still appealed.

Arriving, 1981

It started with one of those midnight flights to Athens and a few hours to kill at the airport before heading to the Pireaus, finding the right ferry and leaving with hundreds of others east for a succession of islands.

Always find the shade, 1981

The trick was to avoid the open deck and go for a seat under canvas. The foolhardy who missed the shade suffered under the relentless sun as one after another island hoved into view and disappeared to be replaced by yet another.

The beach, 2008

The reward of course was the final destination, a week in the sun with cheap booze and amazing food.

Friends still chanced sleeping on the beach but we preferred a bed. Not that the holiday apartments were anything to write home about.

A room, a bed and a basic shower. The rooms were usually over a taverna which solved breakfast and the beach a few minutes walk away.

And that was all you needed.

The apartment above the shop, 1981

The return was much the same with the prospect of hanging around at the airport for another grim flight.

Only improved one year by a late meal in an unpretentious restaurant at the foot of the Acropolis drinking retsina from old glass jars which once held orange juice.

Crossing the island, 2010

Today we fly direct and check the rating of the accommodation and customer comments, book a car to  cross the island, and wonder what it would be like to travel again on those old green and cream buses.

Location; Greece

Pictures; across Greece, 1981-2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Memories of that other Thames ……

 I don’t know if cargo ships still berth along my bit of the River at Greenwich.

But someone will know, and I hope will tell me.

I left London in 1969 and while I still came home for holidays my visits to this bit of where I grew up became less and less.

But back in the late 1970s I did wander the water with a camera and recorded what I saw.

To some they will be dismal, and grimy but they were my part of London.

What strikes me about the berthed ship is how deep the inside compared to the men.

It’s a silly observation given that the hold had to store heaps of things, but it reminds me of just how different the Thames at Greenwich was five decades ago.

The image is one that sat as a collection of negatives in our cellar for 40 odd years, and only recently has come out of the shadows as I digitalize those pictures.

And Peter from Greenwich added "Good evening Andrew, I always enjoy your pictures of the grimy industrial part of my hometown. 

The coaster on the mud at Lovells was one of the first of a type designed with elevating wheelhouses and masts ets to work upstream on the Rhine and other European rivers. The depth of the hold would have probably been around 4 metres".

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; waiting to load, the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

The pungent aroma of Brylcreem and Old Spice …. defining an era

My Brylcreem days were limited.  

They lasted for just a few years when mother insisted on using the stuff and then adding a hair grip to keep the quiff in place.

I rebelled early and never went back although dad would regularly brush his hair through with a dab even on days when he stayed indoors.

But Old Spice was different, I used the aftershave, the deodorant and the talc from those distinctive shaped white and red jars.

On reflection I must have cut a powerful presence when meeting Pamela, Jennie or Ann on a Saturday night outside the Eltham ABC on the High Street.

But then my aroma would mix with their perfume and blend into a romantic haze.

Leaving for Manchester and college coincided with growing my hair, and the application of Old Spice became redundant.

I had all but forgotten that ritual of adding the stuff, but it all came flooding back the other day when on a warm summer’s evening I passed the man resplendent in his “going our clothes” accompanied by a cloud of male deodorant.

And in turn that took me back to a moment in the early 1990s when I visited a house full of bedsits each inhabited by a student and each with a different male deodorant which collectively hung in the air making a mis mash of smells.

Judging by the supermarket shelves “smellies” remain as popular, but I think not hair oil.  My generation long ago forsook it, if we really adopted it and nor do my kids, although occasionally one of them will use a gel.

It may be the end of an era, but at least it means the head rests on our armchairs are free from the grease stains which meant the addition of an embroidered cloth covering or even plastic head rest.

Of course I may have got it all wrong and out there countless heads will still have their Brylcreem addition.

We shall see.

Pictures; Advert for Brylcream and Nutriline, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and 1944 advertisement for the Old Spice Shaving Soap in a pottery mug, Old Spice After-Shaving Lotion, Old Spice Talcum, Old Spice Brushless Shaving Cream, and Old Spice Bath Soap, April 1944, The Saturday Evening Post, 1944, April 1, page 95, Author Shulton, Inc.

“the green fields of one summer are the roads and avenues of the next.”

This picture of Oswald Road perfectly sums up what we had become by the early decades of the 20th century.  

For most of the early and mid 19^th century we had been a small rural community growing food for the markets of Manchester.

But with the coming of mains water, a gas supply and later a railway station we were quickly transformed in to a suburb of the city.

It was as the Manchester Evening News commented in the September of 1901 so swift a development that “the green fields of one summer are the roads and avenues of the next.”

And something of just how quickly the roads and avenues appeared can be got from the street directories for the early 20^th century.  These were not unlike our telephone directories in that they listed the householder in each road, street and avenue, with the added bonus that they often give the occupation.

And as I write I am looking at the directories for the three years of 1901, 09 and 11 and have chosen that collection of roads around Oswald Road.  Here is a remarkable story of piecemeal building as speculative builders vied with each other to build anything from a single house, to a semi up to a terrace. 

The development is patchy and is partly conditioned by changing land use.  So on the corner of Oswald and Longford Roads, what was once open ground, became a skating rink and later a row of eight semi detached houses built I guess sometime after 1916 and more likely in the years after the Great War.

In some ways these first inhabitants must have felt a little like pioneers, with views across the fields towards Turn Moss uninterrupted by other houses. Well, until the brick works arrived but that is another story.

The fun thing to do is to go and look for yourself.  Armed with copies of the1893 and 1907 OS maps and with just a little knowledge of building styles it is possible to distinguish the large Victorian piles from the Edwardian semis and terraces and the speculative in fill of later decades.

But it occurs to me that in all the stories of the new rows of houses, and the reasons for the rapid development of Chorlton at no time have I presented that population increase and so here it is.

Pictures; Oswald Road from the Lloyd collection, detail of 1907 OS map and the changes in population from 1841-1911.

At the bus stop in Piccadilly in 1961

It is 5 pm on a sunny afternoon in 1961 and the rush hour is in full swing.

And if you lived in great chunks of Manchester it would be the bus which would be taking you home.

Now it would be a full eight years before I washed up in the city but W.Higham’s picture perfectly captures the bus station I remember.

It is of course a scene that has vanished.  The old glass and steel shelters went a long time ago and the building behind on Portland Street was another of those that I remember but its demolition passed me by.

Behind the bus shelter and the line of commuters the sunken gardens fare better, lasting into this century before they too succumbed to change which I still have doubts about.

Every time I gaze on that great concrete slab I wonder if a more sympathetic device could have been created to screen the busy transport hub from the open spaces of the new gardens. And whether the gardens could just have been tidied up and left as they were rather than creating that wet windswept expanse of tired grass and water feature.

All of which I know opens me up to the criticism that I am wallowing in nostalgia but not so.  The gardens were a pleasant place offering a degree of peace in the heart of the city and a welcome lunchtime break.*

And by extension for those who wanted to miss the rush hour torture they were a pretty good place to sit it out till the buses were half empty.

And that couple of hours between the day time people leaving and the night crowd coming in is still a magical time.

The city seemed to get a wee bit quieter and a little calmer, but you knew it was just a lull before the business of fun took over from that workaday atmosphere.

The gardens were a particularly good place to observe it as were the city centre pubs.  Stay long enough in one of the pubs and you could watch as tired office workers and shop assistants slid away after a few drinks having discussed their day and were replaced by a more energetic and optimistic crowd whose enthusiasm for the night ahead grew as the rounds were bought.

So I still wonder at how many of those at that bus stop waiting in the late afternoon sunshine decided that tea in Chorlton and an evening with Coronation Street, Dick Emery and the Avengers might be less attractive than the call of a few drinks and a film at the Odeon.

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/distant-memories-of-manchester-parks.html

Picture; Piccadilly Bus Station at 5pm, W. Higham, 1961, m56932, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

The Chorlton farthing, halfpenny and penny from Reynard Road …. bringing luck to the house

Now, there will be someone who can offer up a full and detailed explanation for the practice of putting coins in or around the entrance to a house.

I am guessing it will be a pre Christian practice.  

One suggestion I read referred back to “Italian folklore probably - it's so that money will flow freely into the home and that the people inside prosper”, and another reminded me that coins were placed at the foot of masts in sailing ships.

My grandparents found a coin dating from King George III under the stone step in their two up two down on Hope Street in Derby, which dated the row of terraced houses .

And Jaime who lives on Reynard Road sent over these coins adding, “Good morning Andrew, I thought I’d share another interesting thing about our house. 

We are having some work done and my builder found some old coins in the old door frame.  There’s a 1927 penny, 1939 farthing, 1942+1943 half pennies. 

They were in the old back door frame. I think at a later date a small extension was added”.

The houses date from the early 20th century, and so as Jaime says the extension will have been added later sometime after 1943, but I suspect not long afterwards, but maybe after the war.

In 1939, a Mr. Sydney Mckew who was a long distance lorry driver shared the house with Ada Faulkner and George Hayes, which for the time being is s close a we are going to get to those coins and the little back extension.  

Ada was twelve years older than Sydney and described her occupation as “Unpaid domestic duties”, while George was 29 and was “Milk Roundsman”.

In time we may find out more about the three and push forward the time when they lived in the house to when the coins were deposited.

But for now that is pretty much it, other than to reflect that there will be many like me who not only remember all of the coins Jaime sent over but will have used them until they became history with the move to decimal coinage.

Although I have come across and written about other odd objects found in houses, including the Salford shoe, and the 1910 cheese sandwich.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; “Four coins from a doorway", 2021, from the collection of Jaime Cockcroft-Bailey

Home Thoughts of Woolwich ....... no. 1 ….. the badge

Sometimes it is as simple as a badge, which after 40 years brings back a bit of history.

Having left Well Hall in 1969 for Manchester, I only visited the Tramshed on brief visits home, but it was a popular place for our Elizabeth.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; the badge, circa 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Knott Mill in 1963

I wish I had known Knott Mill in the 1960s.

As it was it would be a full decade later that I wandered down there.

Of course my excuse was that as a student and later working in Wythenshawe this end of Deansgate was a bit off the beaten track.

So to redress that simple omission here is a litho print made by my friend Ann Love in 1963.

Back then she was still at Manchester College of Art, studying Book Illustration and wandering the city for subject matter.

I am rather pleased that she did and moreover that she recorded this bit of Knott Mill.

Picture; litho print of Knott Mill, 1963 courtesy of Ann Love.

It’s the history …. not the quality

I am on Camp Street looking across the Rochdale Canal.

The quality of the images is not wonderful but then they were taken with a cheap camera in 1978, and the negatives have sat in the cellar for 40 odd years.

The original prints were lost a long time ago, but today I digitized those negatives, and they reveal a bit of Manchester now vanished.

Back then the area was waiting for something to happen, so while the Courts were just up the road doing the business of dealing with lawbreakers, and the College of Commerce was still introducing students to the wonders of accountancy, the law, and even a mix of Arts degrees Camp Street was a pretty forlorn spot.

For three years at the start of the 1970s I had wandered down it, exploring this part of the city instead of going to the library in the Aytoun College of Knowledge.

Back then there was an old-fashioned transport café, and those line of parking meters, while the skyline was dominated by buildings most of which have long gone or been turned into other uses.

And that really is that.

Location; Canal Street

Pictures; the Rochdale Canal, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost in the attic .............. a new collection of photographs of Chorlton........ nu 1 Whitelow Road

This is Whitelow Road sometime in the early 20th century and with the picture comes one of those intriguing little stories.

It is one of a collection of images which were donated to St Clements Church and were found in the attic of a house.

And that is about all I know of the history of the twenty or so photographs of Chorlton.

All except one date from sometime after 1900 and measure 25.5 cms by 42 cms and have been reproduced from picture postcards.

I would love to know who went to all the trouble of first collecting and then enlarging the images and later storing them away.

Now there will be a story there but I doubt it will ever come to light.

So instead I shall concentrate on this one which shows a gang of labourers at work.

I don’t have a date but the company whose name plate appears on the steam engines was Davies Brothers, Asphalt Road Makers who were listed in the 1911 directory with an office on Princess Street and a depot on Green Lane.

Green Lane ran from Brook Street to the Garratt Bridge by the River Medlock in Chorlton on Medlock and long ago was swept away by new developments which included the old BBC Broadcasting building.

What makes the picture interesting is that it is one I have never seen before and comes with a companion photograph which also shows Whitelow Road with the same team of workmen.

Both contain a wealth of detail from the steam engines, barrels of tar to the wooden sets and the large number of labourers.

This was after all at a time when much of the work still relied on muscle power and so despite the steam engines it was still down to shovels, wheelbarrows and a lot of effort.

But the pictures also include that small band of spectators who have been drawn to the scene.

Like the workman they stare back at the camera with that mix of poses, some stopped in their tracks, a few looking curious and the rest those who just can’t miss the opportunity to be in the picture.

And of these the one I am drawn to is the chap in uniform pausing with his parcels to be caught on camera.

Now I am sure there will be someone who can help explains the use of the long wooden beam across the road and others who will want to speculate exactly where along Whitelow Road the pictures were taken from so I shall close by reflecting on how many more pictures of old Chorlton are sitting in attics across the township.

Pictures; Whitelow Road date unknown, from the Simpson Collection