The old church on the green in 1933

This is one of my favourite pictures of the old parish church.

It was taken by F. Blyth and appeared in A Short History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy written by J. D. Blyth in 1933.

Now at present I don’t know whether J.D. Blyth was the father or brother of the photographer, and both remain shadowy figures.

The text is drawn from the work of the late 19th century historian Thomas Ellwood and pretty much repeats the earlier work word by word.

Not that there is anything wrong in that.

Mr Ellwood’s work had been published as a series of newspaper articles between 1885 and 86 and while some of them reappeared in church magazines during the early 20th century I rather think that that by 1933 they were less well known.

That said it is the three photographs that draw you into the short history, and this is partly because we do not have many floating around from the 1930s.

This one of the church was taken from the south and it shows off some of the detail which is often missing from other pictures.  The side aisles were added in 1837 around the time that two Arnot stoves were installed for heating and the flue and chimney of one of them is just visible behind the spire.

The church had just another seven years of working life because it was closed in 1940 and demolished in 1949.

The grave stones remained in place until the area was landscaped in the early 1980s and many of the headstones taken away.

Picture; the parish church from the south, 1933, by F. Blyth, from A Short history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy by J.D. Blyth, 1933

The drab street ......the museum ...... and ....... the mural

 There are some parts of the city that even a bright sunlit day in the middle of a perfect summer  will always be drab and uninviting.

And so it is with Grosvenor Street which cuts its way across Upper Brook Street to end at Oxford Road.

There is of course the former Grosvenor Picture Palace, along with The Deaf and Dumb Institute Building, that pub with an interesting alternative past, and the former Oddfellows Hall.

As for the rest, the buildings are mix of 19th and 20th century properties, some of which hide themselves under rather ugly signage, and a carpark of sorts.

When Andy took a stroll down, there wasn’t even a ray of bright sunlight, instead on a grey wet day in February the place did little to sell itself.

But there are always things to clock and wonder at, and so it was with the Oddfellows Hall, whose history can be discovered on line at Historic England.*

And also, at the University of Manchester’s site, Manchester 1824, “The ‘Oddie’ history of MECD’s Oddfellows Hall”.**

Now I have no intention of lifting the information from these two sites, so you will have to follow the links, but together they reminded me that once a long time ago the Oddfellows building was the temporary home of the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology, and I remember walking around the machines on a few occasions in the 1970s.

At the time what fascinated me more was the mural outside on the gable wall, which lingered on after the museum moved out in 1983, beginning to fade and peel, until it was finally painted over.

Back then I never took a picture and I have fallen back on one from Manchester University 1825,  which I have asked permission to use. 

Even back then in the 1970s Grosvenor Street was drab but,  that bright and happy murial always cheered me up.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Grosvenor Street, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and that mural, taken from The ‘Oddie’ history of MECD’s Oddfellows Hall

*Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1200840

**The ‘Oddie’ history of MECD’s Oddfellows Hall,  https://www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk/science-engineering/2020/03/04/the-oddie-history-of-mecds-oddfellows-hall/

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 35 ..... the spot with the view

Now it is easy to over romanticise the River.

Our bit was smelly, noisy, and grimy and at times dangerous with none of those idyllic scenes you get up river.

But this was our stretch from the ferry at Woolwich down to the Naval College and on to Deptford.

I spent hours on the ferry just going back and forth, played on the beach in front of the Cutty Sark, and on a whim went for an adventure in the two foot tunnels just to see what “the other side looked like”.

And sometimes when we were older we just took ourselves down to the water front and watched the busy river do its business.

This was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

And these two are from a lost day out with our Jillian and Stella.  I have no idea where Liz or Theresa were and I have no idea what we did next.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson