Withington Hospital ....... sixty years ago

 This is Withington Hospital in 1965.

Withington Hospital from Cavendish Road, 1965

And it’s a lesson in how quickly we forget.

The image was taken from Cavendish Road and shows the rear of the complex, with the large field in between.

I must have passed it heaps of time but when confronted with the picture I was puzzled, and it took a few minutes rummaging through old maps and even older photographs to fix the place.

The view along with the hospital have long gone.

Interestingly the caption of the colour slide offered up the title “Union Workhouse”, which of course is what it was.

The hospital and field, 1956

Built in the early 1850s by the Chorlton Union, it replaced the smaller workhouse in Hulme and remained as such till the 1930s.

The hospital and field, 1935

Today some of the hospital buidlings have been converted into residential use and apart from a property in Styal, the only surviving building from the age of the Workhouse in south Manchester is the former offices of the Chorlton Union in All Saints.

In its day the offices administered the work of poor relief across south Manchester and early in its history added an infirmary to the workhouse.

The infirmary was requestioned during the Great War and served as a hospital catering for casualties from the battle front and some of those who died are buried in Southern Cemetery.

I rather think the recovering wounded in their “hospital blue” uniforms may have made good use of the field.

There are a few images from Manchester Library’s archive of images which show the field but none that I can find which places it beside the hospital.*

So perhaps a unique image.

Location; Withington Hospital

Picture; “Withington Hospital, former workhouse, seen from behind”, 1965, The 1965 Collection, the hospital and field  1956, from the OS Map of Manchesterster & Salford, 1956, hospital & field, 1935, m53369, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

A harvest festival at Chorlton in 1904 .......... a rare photograph

There is something very powerful about this photograph. 

I know none of the people who are staring back at me and I can only hazard a guess at a date, but it is one of those few pictures where we can see a collection of the people who lived in our township.

It was passed to me by Carolyn Willitts whose family ran Red Gates Farm from the 1880s till the turn of the last century.

They were the Wood family and amongst Carolyn’s collection of postcards is one of John Wood with a plough somewhere out towards the meadows, another of him outside the farm and a third accepting the offer of help from Mrs Wood at the Harvest Festival in the old church.

This last card is dated September 1904 and our photograph cannot be any later than 1908, when the old Bowling Green Hotel was demolished and the new one opened. The roof and chimneys of the old pub are just visible to the left of the church.

The romantic in me would like to think that this was that harvest festival which begs the question is Mrs Wood there in that row of four women at the back? The trees still have their leaves so just maybe.

But on the other hand perhaps it is the third Sunday in July when the church here in Chorlton celebrated St Clements Day. This was the wakes day which had once been popular all over England and in the past was the time when the villagers would have brought fresh rushes to spread on the church floor after the old ones had been swept out. This gave the day its other name of rush bearing.

We may even be able to identify the clergyman sitting in the front. From 1892 the Reverend F.E. Thomas was here until 1911, or just possibly either the Reverend Floyd who was assistant from 1900-1904 or Reverend Thomas who was the assistant from 1904 till 1910.

Now I have learned that just because at this moment the picture still holds many unanswered questions there is every possibility that someone will identify one of the people in the churchyard that day or even be able to suggest a firm date.

We shall see. In the meantime it remains a rare picture of the church still in full use and the parish graveyard still a place where the bodies of generations of parishioners laid undisturbed.

 Although there will be readers who will raise the Great Burial scandal but that as they say is another story.

Picture; from the collection of Carolyn Willitts

An occasional series to mark the 500th anniversary of our parish church.

Stories of clearance ………… Beswick in 1967

Now, anyone who has grown up in an area zoned for house clearance will instantly recognize this picture.

I can’t be exactly sure where it was taken, but as most of the others around it were from Beswick I think we can be confident that is where we are.

It would be easy enough just to let the picture say it all, but then where would the fun be in that?

I am drawn first to the lamp post and bicycle tyres, which remind me that I also played that game of trying to get tyres on to and over the lamp post.

I never find it that easy, but  both Johnny Cox and Jimmy O’Donnell were experts and judging by these two tyres, who ever played the game back in 1967 was pretty good at it.

After which there was always bag of chips from Dodson’s, which according to the sign was still open, offering tea, fish, chips peas and puddings.

It is remarkable it is still standing particularly as from my experience, the last man standing was either the pub or the betting shop.

I doubt it had long to last, but despite the boarded upstairs windows, there is a car outside and a TV aerial on the roof.

But the writing is on the wall, or to be more accurate in the letter from the Council announcing the date of its demolition.

And if anyone wanted proof, it is there just around the corner, where the gap in the row of terraced houses has exposed the neighbouring property.

Indeed, closer to home, the house next to the chippy has already gone.

But amongst the clearances there were treasures to be found, and found by the most unexpected people.

Just seven years later I met up with a primary school teacher on a course given over to the use of Victorian art in the classroom, and in a break in the programme, she gleefully shared her own experiences of bringing the Victorian in to the school.

This consisted of marching a group of young students out of the school to buildings close by which were being demolished, and armed with hammers and chisels they set about “rescuing” fireplace and bathroom tiles, which went on display.

It was of course a different time and I doubt any such rescue mission would get past the idea stage.

That said I also remember just a decade or so later people in Chorlton were restoring their homes with Victorian and Edwardian fire places and bathrooms which had been  ripped out in the 1950s and 60s, with tiles and cast iron surrounds from clearance areas in the north and east of the city.

Leaving me to reflect on the odd side of those clearance programmes.

Location; Beswick

Picture; Dodson’s lonely chip shop, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

When the Ferry met Dan Dare and arrived on our door mat ...... a thank you to Tricia

Now I had no idea that the Woolwich Ferry would fall through our letter box today.

I say the Ferry but it was one of those cut away diagrams which featured in the Eagle Comic.

All of which made it a nice double whammy because as everyone knows I have a “thing” for the Ferry, but also because The Eagle was and still is my comic.

It was launched in 1950 and around 1959 I discovered it in the classroom of 3B in Edmund Waller School on one of those wet playtimes, and I was hooked and I spent a chunk of the ‘90s buying up copies, eventually splashing out on whole volumes.

But Vol 13 No. 32 which came out on August 11 1962 wasn’t one of them although it will have been one I read.

And now it has joined the collection which is all due to Tricia who knowing my fascination for the Ferry found it on eBay and the rest was a click of the mouse and a trip to the post office.

It arrived today and I am a very happy chap.

The cutaway diagram was one of the most popular features of the comic and week in week out we would be treated to the workings of the Routemaster Bus, the Spitfire, endless submarines, railway locomotives and even a series on atomic powered vehicles, including an aircraft and rocket.

It fitted the optimistic 1950s when all things seemed possible, including the fact that the top test pilot for Space Fleet would Dan Dare who had been born in Manchester and the head of the organization would not be an American or a Russian but Sir Hubert Guest.

That said Space Fleet was under the direction of the United Nations.

By the time the Woolwich Ferry appeared Dan Dare had been bundled away to the inside and LT. Hornblower, RN carried the front page while the cutaway now sat at the back.

None of this has diminished my pleasure at re-reading an old friend after fifty-six years.

And yes I have poured over the cutaway and even fancy I have located my favourite seat.

So here for all is the cutaway with special thanks to Tricia and links to stories about the Eagle Comic*, Comics of the 1950s**, and Eagle Times***, which is the journal of the Eagle Society

Location; Woolwich, 1962

Picture; The New Woolwich Ferry and the front cover of the Eagle, Vol 13 No.32 August 11 1962

*The Eagle; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

**Comics of the 1950s, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Comics%20of%20the%201950s

*** Eagle Times, Annual subscription UK £29, overseas £40, and as a start you can visit the site https://eagle-times.blogspot.co.uk/