Two chums … Enriqueta Rylands …. and a walk around Stretford’s past

It started with a talk on John and Enriqueta Rylands by the novelist Juliette Thomlinson and finished with some nice surprises.*

Closed entrances, 2025

I knew the talk by Juliette would be good and it was.  Judging by the comments from the packed audience at Stretford Library they thought so with the two infront commenting that the talk was informative and offered an insight into how a novelist works.

What I didn’t expect was to bump into my old Stretford chum Bill Sumner and his wife who is all things history.  And the chance meeting led to him showing me the remains of an old farm minutes from the Library.

Stretford shapes, 2025

Added to that as the talk finished, I bumped into Chris Roman whose photographs I much admire and who I had never met before.

All of which was interposed with a bit of Stretford’s past from the old Robin Hood pub to St Matthew’s Church.

I have a fond spot for the Robin Hood because briefly the name was adopted by one of our first beer shops in Chorlton, which changed its name to the Traveller’s Rest sometime in the 1840s.

It opened at the bottom of Chorlton Row and continued trading into the 20th century

Location; Stretford

Pictures, Stretford on a March Day, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* A Manchester Love Story, The Squeeze Press, www.woodenbooks.com