When I lost a water trough ….. in Stretford in the summer of 1965

 I collect water troughs ….. eccentric perhaps but fun.

And had I been on Chester Road in the summer of 1965 this one would have made the collection.

But then in 1965 I was sixteen still living at home in southeast London and had yet to come across one of the passions of my life.  

Sixty years ago I might well have snapped this one, recorded its exact location, and returned decades later to check its fate.

Now I have no idea how many water troughs were made in the 19th century or for that matter how many have survived.

In London they were made and maintained by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association which is not the zippiest of names but neatly does the business.

It had been founded in 1859 as the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association and added the rest when it began providing fresh water for horses and cattle as well as fountains for the people of London.

According to Dickens’s Dictionary of London, in 1879 there were 800 fountains and troughs which on a hot day 30,000 people took advantage of the supply while a “single trough supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in day.”*

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that in my pursuit of water troughs I should keep turning up fine examples of ones that have lasted the course.

All of which leads me back to the Chester Road trough which the caption from the 1965 slide says was erected in 1874, and here’s the rub I can’t find it.

I have wandered down Chester Road using Google maps, checked out the route from the 1896 OS map, and even trawled the collection of old photographs from Trafford Lifetimes, but to no avail.**

That said someone will know, suggest where to look and perhaps surprise me with the fact that it now resides in one of the parks.

And even before the post went live, my friend Lawrence helped me out with, "I do remember it now. That’s the floodlights of Old Trafford in the background. 

They were four steel towers at each corner. Erected around late 1957 early 1958. Now demolished. That pub is the Dog and Partridge. Used to go drinking in there when I was 16. Now demolished and the Bishop’s Blaze pub was built there.

Chester Road was widened and the island went under tarmac and the horse trough disappeared. That area has fascinating relics of the early 20th Century. I think the building behind the camera now a Halfords tyre fixing garage was a factory for motor cars.

It's the starter for ten.

Location; Stretford

Pictures; the Stretford water trough, Chester Road 1965, from the 1965 Collection 

*quoted from Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Drinking_Fountain_and_Cattle_Trough_Association

**Trafford Lifetimes, https://apps.trafford.gov.uk/TraffordLifetimes/