So……. who were the Chorlton Six?

For just over a century and a bit they have looked out across Manchester Road, secure on their columns, and have endured two world wars and umpteen library makeovers.

A face to launch a thousand ships, 2025

That of course is the giveaway, the six sit high up on the two columns fronting the entrance to Chorlton Library. Two look directly out and the other four stare out from the sides of the column.

Herbert from the Lloyd's, 2025

And if I am truly honest, I am not sure that the six are indeed duplicated pairs, and what we really have are the Chorlton three.

To which Eric will mutter “he’s not done his homework properly”, but whether they are six or three pairs of identical faces doesn’t really matter.

The question remains who were they?

Now like most people I know the library story.  

It was opened in 1914 with money from the American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the original plans were lost when the Titanic went down and the building was designed by Henry Price who was the City Architect.

And according to Historic England, he “was the first City Architect, responsible for municipal building projects in the city. He has a number of listed buildings to his name in Manchester, including Victoria Baths (1903-6, Grade II*, based on the 1901-2 designs of Henry Price's predecessor, the City Surveyor T. de Courcy Meade and his assistant Arthur Davies), Harpurhey Baths & Laundry (1909-10, Grade II), Crumpsall & Cheetham District Library (1909-11, Grade II), and Didsbury Public Library (1915, Grade II).”*

One of six or one of three, 2025

I do recommend reading the full entry which gives a detailed description of the building.

But it does need an update to accommodate the recent restoration which reopened the atrium to its original pre 1983/84 design.

But I stray from the fascinating question of who were the faces on the columns?

Medieval stone masons often incorporated fellow workmen into their designs for the figures which embellished the cathedrals they were working on.

So were our six/three known to Mr. Price or the masons who carved them? Which in turn begs the question of whether the figures were people local to Chorlton.

On the day Chorlton reopened after its restoration, 2025

The romantic in me would like to think so, but the reality is they may just be a job lot fashioned almost off a conveyor belt and adorn buildings across the region.

All of which leaves me to go back and check on the six faces or three faces and explore the minutes of the relevant committee responsible for the construction of our library which may offer up someting on who carved them. 

I did go and look at Didsbury and Withington Libraries, which Mr. Price also designed but unless I missed them there were no faces on either.

Sunny days outside the Library, 2015

At which point I must confess I think ours wins the design prize.  

Didsbury looks like a squashed teapot while Withington is bare and unimaginative.

And that is that … a silly bit of history compounded by my laziness on Sunday at only taking pictures of part of the columns.

But I bet someone will put me right on the question of six or three, and may even have knowledge of who our faces belonged to.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton Public Library

Pictures; Chorlton Library entrance, 2015, and 2025 and those faces, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Library, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1414760?section=official-list-entry

A little bit of the old Assize Courts in a farm house garden in Chorlton

Now this story appeared at the beginning of the year but given the interest in Park Brow Farm it just has to come out again.

Now I have to confess that this picture of Manchester Assize Courts interests me because of  the story behind one of the figures that adorned the roof.

And this is the stone figure which sat in the garden of Park Brow Farm at the bottom of Sandy Lane where it joins St Werburghs Road.

My friend Tony Walker maintained that it came from the old Manchester Assize Courts on Great Ducie Street in Strangeways and looking at pictures of the building the figures do look the same.

It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and finished in 1864.

Sadly this magnificent building did not last a century and after being hit during the blitz of December 1940 and again in ’41 it was demolished in 1957.

Some of the exterior sculptures were designed by Thomas Woolner who was one of the founding members of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, but I rather think our figure was the work of the Irish stonemason firm of O’Shea and Whelan.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy



Picture; The Assize Courts,   from the series Manchester United Kingdom, marketed by Tuck & Sons, 1903, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/ and stone figure from the collection of Tony Walker

Osibisa, the old Till & Kenendy Building and a memory

Now for no particular reason I played Woyaya by Osibisa.

Osibisa and Mr. Righton

The LP has sat on the shelf with a shed load of other vinyl which I treasure but seldom play.

And within the time it takes for the music to roll around the room I was back in the 1970s.

It was one of those records that we played late in the night, usually accompanied by the all pervading smell of joss sticks and was pretty much the sound track to a very happy time.

We knew we had grown up a bit, not because we were living in our first house but by the purchase of the sound system which of course following the times was a mix of different bits and pieces.  The speakers were Wharfdales, the record deck was a Pioneer and the tuner was that odd shaped model from Sony with a large dial which took up all of the wooden cabinet.

I have often wondered what our neighbour made of us and the music, but she was always pleasant and made us mince pies at Christmas and so perhaps she too was a fan, despite the fact that she had been born 1900 and had never moved more than half a mile from Raynham Street off Whiteacre Road in Ashton.

And here is the thing, I am still trying to work out whether we heard Osibisa live.  If we did it would have been in the old Till & Kennedy building which by then had become the student’s union of the Manchester Polytechnic.

But even by 1971/2 I think they were successful enough to have regarded a student’s union as small beer.

That said we all know the story of Paul and Linda McCartney with the rest of Wings turning up on a Saturday afternoon offering to play at a student’s bar.

And just a few years earlier the College of Commerce on Aytoun Street had hosted a impressive line up of musicians from Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues and Barclay James harvest, along with Roy Harper, the Edgar Broughton Band and Canned Heat.

So you never know. It maybe I was right and if so I would love the memory confirmed.

Pictures; the Righton Building, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson 

Woolwich in 1915, a Manchester soldier and a love letter from Chorlton

The Great War is now over a century ago.

Royal Artilery Barracks, Woolwich

During the four years of war  Eltham like the rest of the country saw its men go off and fight and learned to cope with the adjustments to everyday life which followed.

But nothing I suppose could ease the loss of those who never returned.  Some of those who appear on our war memorial are being honoured all over again as work is done to research their lives.

So with that in mind I thought I would rerun some stories of the experiences of those who lived through the conflict, starting with George Davison who passed through Woolwich in 1915 and wrote to his wife,

Arrived safely today. No settled address at present.  Best wishes George.”

Now at first glance there isn’t anything special about George’s message to his wife Nellie even given that it was sent from Woolwich to 146 Bedford Street, Hulme in Manchester.

A post card home  from Woolwich to Manchester, 1915

Thousands of young men every year leave the family home in search of work and until things are settled will not have a permanent address.

But what makes the card just a little more interesting is the date and time for George sent it on October 25th 1915 just in time for the late evening collection.

He was in the Royal Artillery and over the course of the next three years was to serve in Ireland and on the Western Front where he was killed in the June of 1918.

I can’t yet establish when he enlisted but Woolwich may have been one of the first posting after he left Manchester.

And just four days after our post card he sent another to Nellie with the request not “to send any letters to Woolwich until further notice.  Expect leaving this weekend for unknown destination.”

During those few days be bought a number of cards depicting Woolwich but never sent them and they now form part of the George Davison collection.

In all there must be a hundred postcards, letters and official documents from 1915 till 1955.  Many are from George to Nellie and after his death there is correspondence from the War Office, the pensions department and his commanding officer.

In uniform in Wolowich, 1915

There are also his school reports, details of his first job along with the social club he joined and his membership of the Independent Labour Party.

And if that was not enough there is a series of charming letters he wrote to young Nellie before they were married.

The first dates from 1904 when she was just 16 and talks of his recent proposal of marriage and his wish to meet her parents on the following day.

Others follow during the course of the next two years and are the usual love letters sent in the age before the telephone.

But it would be a full four years before they married and another three years before the birth of their son.

This is a wonderful collection of material spanning the last decades of the 19th century and well into the next.

And for me there is a very personal connection which links me to George.

During the years before he was married he lived just a few minute’s walk away at Barway House on Edge Lane here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the first marital home was close by in Hulme and we shared a similar political outlook.

All of which then just leaves Woolwich.  He was stationed there briefly in 1915 and I grew up close by separated by just forty years which in the great sweep of things is not much.

I suspect that the Woolwich he knew was still the one I was familiar with in the 1960s and which has now pretty much vanished.

The Royal Herbert

I doubt that he would recognise Beresford Square or Wellington Street any more than I can today, and I am sure would be equally hard pressed to make sense of the area around the Arsenal or for that matter the water front.

Odd that two people separated by those four decades should still have more in common than I would have thought.

But then that is sometimes how history pans out, which is less by grand design and more by a series of hiccups.


Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

One speaker … 28 guests … heaps of history ..... and you have a Library Walk for Chorlton Book Festival

The sun shone the turnout was excellent and so another walk through our past sponsored by Chorlton Book Festival came and went.

In between we did the story of the library, how New Chorlton came to be and on the way looked in at the Isles, the Ice Rink and Mrs Crump, the first women to speak on Women’s Hour.

Nor did we miss the bit of Manchester Road which was stolen, Lord Egerton’s new road named after his relative Wilbraham, and the emergency telephone installed in the Lloyd’s Hotel in 1881 to alert the fire brigade to a domestic fire which failed to stop the fire.

I would like to thank Gail and Lee from the Library service who did the admin and kept me from talking for ever, Janine and the staff at the Edge which supplied the cake and drinks and of course the 28 guests who walked the walk, asked good questions and said nice things at the end.

And a special mention to Juliette who asked the question which led me to talk for 20 minutes, and Ed from Welling who told us all about the connection between Keppel Road and the Isle of Man.

Nor is that quite all because in the twenty minutes before the walk started, I got to look at the faces carved above the pillars of Chorlton Library.

Location; New Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton Library, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

Remembering Park Brow Farm on St Werburgh Road as it was

You have to go looking for pictures of working farms in Chorlton.

I have two in the collection from the 1880s showing Higgnbotham’s farm on the green, a couple more of Ivy Farm on Beech Road and a few of when Hough End Hall was still producing food which just leaves five or six of Park Brow  from the middle decades of the last century.

Nor is there much in the way of written descriptions.

I can think of one short account of Ivy Farm matched by a mix of anecdotes about collecting milk and working on the land at Turn Moss with some detailed stories about Park Brow from Oliver Bailey whose family ran it during the 20th century.

So I was more than a bit happy when my friend Ann sent me a collection of models of Park Brow made by her husband.

“They were” she wrote “made many years ago,  and may not be accurate, as he used it for his layout, but most of it is as he remembers it from 40 years ago when he walked past it every day on his way to work.”

All of which I think is a tad modest of Howard.  If you compare them with collection of photographs from the 1930s and 40s along with and Oliver’s description of the farm and the present buildings the models are a pretty close reconstruction.

And that is pretty much all I am going to say for now, but reserve the right to come back with lots more at a later date.

Location Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy




Pictures; models of Park Brow, circa 1974, courtesy of Howard Love

Celebrating our Municipal Town Halls part 3 .......... Woolwich Town Hall

It is all too easy to become cynical about public service and the achievements of local government.

Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries local government  more so than Westminster was at the cutting edge of improving the lives of local people.

As Sidney Webb said the “municipalities have done most to socialise our industrial life.”  And so a resident of Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow could benefit from municipal supplies of water, gas and electricity, travel on municipally owned trams and buses, walk  through a municipally maintained park while knowing his children were being educated in municipally run schools.

“Glasgow builds and maintains seven public ‘common lodging houses’; Liverpool provides science lectures; Manchester builds and stocks an art gallery; Birmingham runs schools of design; Leeds creates extensive cattle markets; and Bradford supplies water below cost price. 

There are nearly one hundred free libraries and reading rooms. The minor services now performed by public bodies are innumerable.”*

And all of that was evidenced not only in the Corporation parks and schools and baths but in the town halls which were solid examples of both civic pride and local democracy.

So here is Woolwich Town Hall built in 1906 and opened by Will Crooks




Picture; Woolwich Town Hall, courtesy of Kristina Bedford*

*Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014, Amberley Publishing,

On a London bus in an unfamiliar place..... the non story

Now everyone likes the old London bus.

Like the telephone kiosk, the pillar box and the black cab the red London Transport bus has become an iconic image.

There will be plenty of people who have travelled on this one I bet, but in the summer of 1980 it was well out of its usual bus route, having taken part in a vintage cavalcade of cars, buses and lorries here in Manchester.

All of which goes to show that a little bit of London can go a long way.

Location; Manchester

Picture; the London bus off timetable, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Tomorrow ..... the history walk that's got the lot ..... Sunday 2 pm at Chorlton Library

 Join us on Sunday for a walk through Chorlton's history and discover how a sleepy rural hamlet called Martleldge was transformed within three decades into a busy urban centre.

The Isles from Manchester Road, circa 1882

Along the way there will be the story of the mysterious and frightening figure of Duffy who inhabited the brick works, the long lost Ice Rink and the murder of a father of six which shocked the community.

It is September that time when conkers fall from the trees, furious debates ensue about turning on the central heating and Manchester Libraries show case interesting authors and fun events during the annual Chorlton Book Festival.*

The history walk has been a feature of the festival for the last fourteen years, and this September we will explore the story of New Chorlton which was the area around the former Four Banks, down to the library and across to Longford Park.

The Royal Oak, circa 1900

And so, it is fitting that the walk will start at the library, which was once Red Gates Farm, dating back to the 18th century, and from there gently amble along Longford Road to Oswald Road and then on via Nicolas, Manchester and Barlow Moor Roads to Wilbraham Road and the Edge Theatre for tea and cake.

And on such a historic stroll there will be much to discover, including that ice rink and brick works, as well as a place called the Isles, the first Sedge Lynn, and Kemp’s Corner with the tale of the awful slaying of young Francis Deaken, strange goings on in the Lloyds and the roads that were made and stolen.

So, as the advert used to say ….. it’s got the lot.

The Dressing Room, 2025

The walk starts tomorrow at Chorlton Library on Manchester Road, at 2pm, lasts for just over an hour and concludes at the Edge Theatre.

Tickets cost £8.50 ….. for which you get heaps of history and the excellent cake in the Dressing Room Café of the theatre.

Book through eventbrite by following this link. 

The rest is a romp through our past taking in the serious, the not so series and some bits of fun. 

Location; Chorlton’s past …. starting at the Library 

Pictures; the Isles, circa 1882, by Arron Booth, the old Royal Oak pub, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection and the Dressing Room Café at the Edge, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Book Festival, September 9th-September 27th,  https://chorltonbookfestival.co.uk/#home

**eventbrite, https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/andrew-simpson-presents-the-forgotten-bits-of-chorlton-tickets-1457310086699?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

Walking in the north of the township in to Martledge in the summer of 1847, part one

Barlow Moor Lane, north to Martledge, a journey which will take in some great houses, a shop, farms and a pub as well as cottages of wattle and daub and brick

Barlow Moor Lane is a long road.

Standing at the point where the Row joins Barlow Moor Lane we have a choice, turn north and journey on to Martledge and then out of the township by various routes to Hulme and
Manchester, or south to Hardy Lane and on to the Mersey, Withington and Didsbury.

Martledge is much overlooked in most histories of the township so north it is.

And we will start with the Holt estate again.  Leaving the Row and heading north up Barlow Moor Lane we follow the east wall of the Holts, all the way to Lane End.  Everything on this side of the road dates from after 1908 when the last of the Chorlton Holts died and the estate sold off.

It finished at Lane End.  Directly opposite where today Sandy Lane begins was the grocer’s shop of Jeremiah  Brundrett.  It was a large house at one time known as Lilly Cottage.

The Brundrett’s were there long enough for the spot to become known as Brundrett’s corner  Facing the shop roughly on the site of the church was the home of Caleb and Ann Jordril.   Here was one of the last wattle and daub cottages.

Continuing north along the lane our journey would pass open fields until we reached the edge of Martledge.

Here to our left was Clough Farm and on our right Oak Bank House.

The farm stood roughly between Groby Road and Silverwood Avenue.   In that summer of 1847 it was occupied by Margaret Taylor and it would have been her farm land we would have seen as we walked up Barlow Moor Lane towards her home.

Today all of the land from Silverwood Avenue back towards High Lane and right back to Lane End was rented by her from the Egerton Estate.  There were 10 acres in all and it was a mix of arable, meadow and clover and included part of Scotch Hill.

Margaret was forty-seven.   Hers was no easy life.  To make 10 acres of land work and bring in a living required hard work.

Over and above the big points in the agricultural year of sowing, planting and reaping, there were the constant demands of weeding, chasing off pests and the journeys to the markets in Manchester.

These were tasks usually carried out by the whole family, but during the 1840s, she lost both her parents and two sisters which left her with just her 11 year old nephew.   Now Margaret was not alone in facing such loss, or in bringing up the child of her a relative.

Easing the chronic overcrowding meant that at least one child might be farmed out to relatives and Edward her nephew had been at Clough Farm since he was five and would still be there when he was 15 by which time she had married John Stretch.

From their fields they would have been able to gaze across at Oak Bank, one time home of William Morton and later the Cope family.  Oak Bank was a substantial building standing in its own grounds close to the modern junction of Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Roads.

Nothing now exists of the house but the path leading to it is now Needham Avenue. The house was situated in a garden which covered the area running on either side of Needham Avenue as far as Barlow More Lane in one direction and Corkland Road in the other.

The estate also included a large meadow field and small wood stretching back from Needham along Barlow Moor Lane to Lane End.

It had belonged to William Morton who had been there since 1821, but on death his will stipulated that the house and land had to be sold within five years.  

When this happened is not known but in 1845 a Miss Crofton was there paying rent to the Executors of Mr Morton.  

By 1847 the house and land were in the possession of Frederick Cope who rented both to John.  This was a short term arrangement and by 1850 the Cope family were living at Oak Bank.

William Morton had described himself as a member of the gentry.   Frederick Cope was a wine merchant who ten years earlier had been living with his wife and children on Oxford Street, close to where the University now stands.  Elizabeth had died by 1851.

Adapted from THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

Pictures; map of Barlow Moor Lane, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/  picture of Jeremiah  Brundrett, Wesleyan Handbook, 1908, courtesy of Philip Lloyd, and gravestone of the Morton family in the parish churchyard, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost story of Hatter's Court …………….

I don’t suppose many people bother with this narrow thoroughfare that connects Marshall Street with Addington Street.

It belongs in that island between Rochdale Road and Oldham Road and is full of open spaces, tired looking warehouses and a few new developments.

It has for decades been a place waiting for something to happen, and while the developers nibble at the edges most of it still looks as it did thirty years ago.

So apart from the odd car that parks up our tiny  street is just a place that accumulates discarded bottles, cans and other rubbish.

But it has a story which if you go back far enough marks it out as the narrow back entry into Hatter's Court, which consisted of eleven properties facing onto the court.  Five of the twelve houses were back-to-back and a search of the Directories has revealed the place didn’t warrant an entry.

Not that I am surprised, because Hatter’s Court and countless others were homes to the poor and as such didn’t get a mention.

Eight of the occupants are listed in the rate books, but despite having those eight names none have so far turned up on the census records.

And only two of them, a John Weston and a Patrick Dowling do we have an occupation for.  Both were a shoemakers, but as the census records are silent there is as yet no way of knowing their age, place of birth or any details of a possible family.

I know that all of the eight listed in the rate books were owned by the same landlord who charged a rent of3 shillings a week which appears to be the going rate for houses in the nearby streets.

The court was still there in 1894 but by then one of houses had been incorporated into its neighbour and four of the original back to backs were enlarged to form bigger houses facing Addington Street.

Sometime after that the court vanished under a new warehouse and there the story ends.

Breaking News, but just eight hours after the story went live, as I continued to search for John Weston and Patrick Dowling in 1851, I turned up the census record for the decade before ...... with the 42 men, women and children who lived in Hatter's Court, revealing their occupations, places of birth, ages and occupations ..... now that's a new story for Sunday.

Location Marshall Street

Pictures; the street with no name and little history, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1850 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

What did Mrs Wood of Eltham Lodge do during the day?

Eltham Lodge from the front, 2000

I wonder how Anna Wood spent her days in Eltham Lodge.

She was a woman of some wealth and standing in the community and there is plenty of information on how her class busied themselves.

But at present nothing has come to light about her daily routines, the local societies she may have contributed to or even what she thought.

Now this is not some idle speculation or an exercise in sexist assumptions about Anna Wood, rather an exploration of her life In Eltham from when she arrived in 1838 till her death fifty one years later.

The detailed lives of working women in Eltham have not survived but we can be fairly confident we know what they would have done involving that balancing act between home and possibly outside work but Anna is a bit of mystery.

We know she was active in protecting the estate and refused permission for the South Eastern Railway Company to build its railway across South Park which resulted in them having to site the station further south in 1866.

The Wood house and the seven servants, 1841

It would have been much the sort of life described by Mrs Beeton in her guide to Household Management * which put much emphasis on how to behave in public, and participate in charitable activities but above all how to manage the home.

And in this role a woman who employed servants had to be like a “commander of an army or the leader of an enterprise”  **

Mrs Beeton was insistent that after breakfast Jane Elizabeth’s day would include an inspection of the servant’s work and a discussion on the order of the day.  Relationships between servant and mistress should be “firm, without being severe, and kind, without being familiar.”**

And her household was large ranging from seven servants in 1841, to six between 1851 and 71, and falling to five in 1881.

Along with these big events was the inevitable round of visiting or receiving visitors, which involved a strict protocol including leaving a card in the event of the person being out and only visiting if invited.

This was especially the case if the destination was the country or another town, “Do not” was the advice of one handbook on how young ladies should conduct themselves, “visit a friend in the country, or another town, unless you have what is called a standing invitation,” for it maybe that the invitation was “designed only to make a show of politeness.” ***

It followed that before arriving at the house, the guest should have informed her host “of the exact day and hour when she may expect you.”

But these social engagements were only part of her activities.  Mrs Beeton also stressed the importance of charitable work, and above all

“Visiting the houses of the poor is the only practical way really to understand the actual state of each family; and although there may be difficulties in following out this plan in the metropolis and other large cities, yet in country towns and rural districts these objections do not obtain. 

Great advantages may result from visits paid to the poor; for there being, unfortunately, much ignorance, generally, amongst them with respect to all household knowledge, there will be opportunities for advising and instructing them, in a pleasant and unobtrusive manner, in cleanliness, industry, cookery, and good management.” ****

Rear of Eltham Lodge, 2000

There were also those activities which combined good works and social gatherings. 

In Chorlton-cum Hardy a similar rural community on the edge of Manchester, one of the most important was the church bazaar committee which included the wives and daughters of both the gentry and farmers is a good example.

The committee had been formed to raise money for the new parish church and culminated with a bazaar held at the Royal Exchange during the Easter of 1862.

It was a cross section of the township and included the daughters of the well off, farmer’s wives and married woman from the larger houses. ****

All of which leaves me  thinking that Mrs Wood would have done her bit and it is now just a matter of finding it.

*Beeton Isabella, first published in 24 monthly parts between 1859-61 before being published in a bound edition in 1861

**Ibid, Chapter 1 page 1 Google edition page 50

*** The Behaviour Book, Leslie, Miss, Willis P Hazzard, London, 1839, page 10, Google edition page 19

****Ibid, Beeton,  page 6, Google edition page 55

***** They were Mrs Ed Booth, rectory, the Misses Holt Beech House, the Misses Morton Lime Bank, the Misses Dean Barlow Farm, Mrs Whitelegg the Green, Mrs J B Wilkinson Brook Cottage, Mrs Tunder the Grange, Mrs Law the Lodge Urmston, Mrs Aders Bella Villas Whalley Range, Mrs Burghardt Whalley Range, Mrs Findeisen Holly Bank, Mrs Meredith White Thorn Cottage Pennington Brookfield House Mrs Broughton Lowe Longford Terrace Longford, Mrs Dewhurst Myrtle Lodge Longford

Pictures; of Eltham Lodge, courtesy of Darrell Spurgeon, Discover Eltham, 2nd edition 2000, and detail from 1841 census courtesy of National Archives and ancestry.co.

Walking Temperance Street ..... just sixty-four years apart

Today I walked down Temperance Street which is that road that hugs the side of the railway viaduct carrying the lines into Piccadilly Railway Station.

Temperance Street, 1959

Over the years I have become very familiar with the bit that runs down from Fairfield Street past the new Mayfield Gardens and is cut short by the Mancunian Way.

But there is another section which carries on all the way to the junction with Higher Ardwick and Devonshire Street North.

And it was this bit that prompted my interest after coming across this image dated 1959. 

I was drawn into the picture by a mix of things, from the kids casually playing in the shadow of the viaduct, and the houses as well as the sheer curiosity as to exactly where on Temperance Street it was taken.

Today the houses have long gone and pretty much the only activity will be from people looking to park up and the comings and goings from the small workshops and storage facilities in the arches.

Temperance Street, 2023

Looking down Temperance Street today it is hard to match the scene from Google maps with that of 64 years ago.

And the challenge then became the quest to locate the spot, which may seem nerdy I agree but was historically fun.

To this end I fell back on the OS map of Manchester and Salford for the area from 1950, that 1959 photograph and the line of Temperance Street today.

And because I failed to have my camera with me, I had to rely on the images generated by Google maps.

It took about fifteen minutes, but I am confident that this 2023 picture is the spot where sixty-four years ago the kids were captured by the photographer.

Temperance Street, 1950

We are looking down the street towards Higher Ardwick and Devonshire Street North, just behind us is Union Street and to our left is the viaduct and to our right behind the railings and some open grasslands are the twelve football pitches which front Union Street.

I maybe wrong and I invite correction, but the clues are there in the 1959 picture. 

These are the slight curve of the viaduct at that point, and the railings just behind the children.

The OS map of 1950 offers up that slight curve but more importantly shows a Garden Place running into Temperance Street, while behind it are a network of streets and terraced houses stretching back to Union Street.

The curve of the viaduct and a hint of Garden Place, 1959

Some might ponder on why spend an hour or so on a detective hunt which reveals no great secrets or high moments of history, but it was fun, and a reminder of just how this part of the city was still occupied well within the living memory of many.

Over the roof tops, 1902

Nor will I labour the point with comparisons which are silly, but the grocers’ or newsagents is today mirrored by the Temperance Street Café almost opposite our picture, while the rooftop scene from 1902 will be familiar to many who follow a TV soap .

All of which just leaves a trawl of the census returns and street directories to get an insight into who lived there over the last century and a half, but that is for another time.

Location; Temperance Street,

Pictures; Temperance Street, 1959,m08284, and rooftops over Temperance Street1902, m11996, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, Temperance Street, 2023, courtesy of Google Maps, and the OS map of Manchester and Salford, 1950

Cycling to a beauty contest …….. “the pretty entrants” of 1937

I bet there will be someone who remembers Riding’s Stores Ltd.

They sold cycles and advertised themselves as “The largest Quality Cycle Specialists in the North of England”, with branches on Deansgate, Corporation Street, Market Street and Swan Street, with shops in Moss Side, Rusholme and Stretford as well as here at 362 Barlow Moor Road.

And in their drive to bring cycles to the world they boasted “No Risk - No Bother – No Fuss – It’s so easy, so simple Riding’s ‘Best of All’ Easy Ways”, which meant that from 1/6 a week you could have any Hercules model , with the added bonus of no deposit and a ”Seven Day Free Riding Trial”.

The advertisement appeared in the Chorlton and Wilbrahampton News for July  16th, 1937, but what caught my eye was an additional notice drawing attention to “More Pretty Entrants in Riding’s Great Northern Cycle Queen Contest”, which featured eleven young women, with one posing with a cycle, another in a swim suit and another talking on the telephone.

And in an act of overkill, the company posted yet another reference to the contest calling on women to “Send in your photographs now!  Adding, “Waste no time. This is a marvelous opportunity for some local girl to gain fame and popularity”.

All that was required was a  name and an address on the back of the picture which was to be sent in a “1½d. sealed envelope to Riding’s” main showrooms on Stockport Road. 

The company also embraced all the modern technology, promising that “Elimination contests will be filmed and the final selection will take place at the New Manchester Hippodrome”, which I suppose opened up the potential for a cinema news story.

But if that was not enticement enough there was the promise “handsome cash prizes” and the simply direct question “Will You Be Queen?”

So, there you have it and by one of those little quirky twists, the Riding’s shop on Barlow Moor Road was just four doors down from Ken Foster’s cycle shop.  Now that is a bit of historical continuity,

Location; Chorlton and Manchester

Pictures; addverts from the Chorlton and Wilbrahampton News, July 1937 from the collection of Maggie Watson

Doing the Ancoats Trail …….. 39 years on … part two

Now, something like 39 years ago I did the Ancoats Trail, which had been designed by Jaqueline Roberts as a guide to what were left of our late 18th and early 19th century buildings.

So, armed with the trail I shall be off on a day when the rain is not falling like stair rods and complete part one of the trip back into the city’s past.

Watch this space.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures pages from the Ancoats Trail, 1984


*The Ancoats Trail, Jaqueline Roberts, Education Service, Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry

Animals for the pot back in the kitchens of Chorlton and Well Hall in 1848

Back in rural communities in 1848 pigs and chickens were common enough and many families aspired to keeping a family pig. 

These were kept in the back garden or yard and could be fed on almost anything and would provide a family with food for almost the entire year.

As well as fresh pork there was salted bacon, cured ham, lard, sausages and black pudding.

Beyond its food value the dead pig offered its pigskin for saddles, gloves, bags and footballs while the bristles could be used for brushes and an average pig gave a ton of manure a year.

All of this was fine but often the pig became a family pet which made its killing just that bit harder.  Not that this halted the inevitable, which tended to be done in winter.

It was reckoned that the cooler months should be preferred given that in the words of the farming expert Henry Stephens, “the flesh in the warm months is not sufficiently firm and is then liable to be fly born before it is cured.”    

So the traditional time was around Martinmas in early November which had the added advantage that cured hams would be ready for Christmas.

As for the slaughtering of the pig this was done by the local butcher who was often paid in kind, and could be a traumatic event for both pig and family.

Not that there was any set way to carry this out and stories abound of botched attempts all of which led Stephen’s to recommend that the pig be placed on a bed of straw and the knife inserted into the heart.

The event was very much a family affair with everyone pitching in to scrap the hair clean from the body by either immersing it in boiling water or pouring the scalding water over the carcase, and later salting down the meat.  Immediately after it had been killed it was hung and left for the night before being cut up.

It was a time consuming job to rub salt into the hams and not a pleasant one either.  First the salt had to be crushed from a salt block which was then rubbed into the meat.

A side could be anything up to four feet [1.2 metres] in length and special care had to be taken to rub the salt into the bone joints.  All of this left the hands red raw.

Nor was this the end of the process.  The meat then had to be soaked in water and dried before being wrapped in muslin and hung up.  Meanwhile some of the pork might be cooked up into pies and the blood made into black pudding.

The family pig was indeed an important part of the means by which many in the township supplemented their earnings.  But pigs were part of the local economy and both farmers and market gardeners would find keeping pigs a profitable undertaking.

As we have seen they could be fed on almost anything.  In winter this might be potatoes or turnips and in summer they could be left to graze in a grass field.  The going rate at market in 1844 for a pig was anything between 24s [£1.20p] and 30s [£1.50p].

Our old friend Henry Stephens calculated that two brood sows could produce 40 pigs between them and that retaining six for home use the remaining 34 could easily be sold at market.

So many of the smaller farmers and market gardeners in the township might well keep at least one sow and use it to supplement their income.

The same was true of poultry which existed happily enough in a back garden or farmers’ yard.  But I doubt that there was much to be made from selling the eggs.

A dozen eggs in the summer of 1851 might cost 4d [2p] a dozen and rise in price to 8d [4p] later in the year.

Enterprising farmers and market gardeners might store up summer eggs to sell in the winter.  This involved smearing them with butter or lard while still warm and packing them in barrels of salt, oats or melted suet then transport them into the city or sell them to egg merchants who visited on a weekly basis.

Pictures; from the Book of the Farm Henry Stephens, Vol 11 1844

THE STORY OF CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Andrew Simpson, 2012, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

When the 1950’s came back to Beech Road

Daft title I know but the sign outside Etchells’ on Beech Road with its promise of assorted different lollies will resonate with anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 60’s.

Beech Road, 2025

And it is less for those assorted different lollies and instead the pale yellow background, coloured strips and its distinctive blue lettering.

Eldorado, 1959

We were a Wall’s house but I know that other brands were available including Lyons Maid and El Dorado.

But for us it was that family brick with its vanilla, strawberry and chocolate sections called Neapolitan.

That said I had no brand loyalty as a kid and on occasion in Woolworth’s would buy one of those round ice creams in its round cornet which I think belonged to Lyons Maid.

And if really pushed might indulge in a Topper from Eldorado, but the flavour of its inside was bland.

I suppose we also fell on Wall’s because at 1922 it was the oldest and therefore was a brand both mother and father would have recognised unlike its whipper snapper rivals of Lyons which dated from 1925 and the baby Eldorado which only appeared in1952.

Wall’s also appeared in the Eagle comic that go to boy’s paper of the 1950s, which was my weekly read. It had its own picture strip in which Tommy Walls would battle the bad, the very bad and even more bad villains.

Tommy Walls, 1950

At which point I could go into the history of the company’s and focus on all those Italian ice cream makers who worked our towns and cities in the late 19th and twentieth centuries, but I won’t.  Nor will I feature the work of Mrs Thatcher as one of scientists engaged in making whipped lighter ice cream thereby adding more air than white stuff to the finished product.

Although I am tempted to linger on the practice of selling the stuff in small metal containers at a penny ago, but the dreadful knowledge that the said bowls were not washed out between licks is a topic best left to those stern and heavy books on how diseases spread.

And that is it.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; On Beech Road, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and advert for Topper Ice Cream Lollie, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22, and Tommy Walls from the Eagle, April 18th, 1950