Early morning on Beech Road ………..

Long before the bars, the restaurants and gift shops there was a Beech Road.*

It’s present incarnation as a cool place to visit is just the most recent reason to wander down from Barlow Moor Road to the old village green.

Within living memory, it was a destination for a heap of traditional shops with a mix of retail outlets offering everything from food, hardware, and services including a plumbing firm, TV repair shop, photographer, Bryan the Book and the emporium for gerbils, goldfish and all things pet related.

And long even before all of these there were farmhouses, a blacksmith, a pond and the homes of the posh.

Back then and way into the distant past it was known as Chorlton Row and twisted and turned avoiding natural obstacles down from the main lane from Didsbury to Chorlton Green.

That twisty turny place is best discovered in the early morning before the “Friends of Beech Road” with their cars parked across the pavement have arrived.

So today I was out around 7.30 but the cars were already parked up and by 11 the Friends were arriving.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Early morning Beech Road, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Beech Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Beech%20Road