One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 157 ..... old traditions …. new customs ..... and a challenge to Brexit

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Nougat, and Roccocò napoletani , 2025

I have no idea how Joe and Mary Ann celebrated Christmas, but given that they moved in soon after the start of the Great War when certain foods were becoming scare, and prices were rising I suspect “all the trimmings” were in short supply.

By contrast the rising prosperity after the Second World War will have seen an increasing abundance of nice things for the table, although I am guessing what they ate will have been reflected by the fact that they were born in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and that moulded their tastes.

In the same way when we came to celebrate Christmas in the house in the mid 1970s, the traditional festive dinner and the extra bits like boxes of Quality Street and preserved fruits rubbed up against pasta, and curry.

So always a blend of the new and the old.

And that hasn’t changed.  This year Rosa brought over a variety of Italian sweets including Roccocò napoletani  which are Neapolitan Christmas biscuits.

They are made with mixed spices, nuts and candied fruits, and are rather crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. 

They are traditionally made starting on December 8, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and enjoyed throughout the holiday season, ending with Epiphany on January 6. 

These days post Brexit her cache of Italian food is far more modest, while one year an entire suitcase was given over to oranges, heaps of nougat, nuts, cooked meats and even a chicken, not to mention packets of coffee.

More nougat and Ptasie mleczko, 2025

And not to be out done our Julia came from Warsaw with a packet of Ptasie mleczko which my Wikipedia tells me translates into “bird's milk which is a confectionery originating in Poland and is a small, chocolate-covered bar with a soft marshmallow-like interior.

E. Wedel is one of the most recognized chocolate confectioneries in Poland, having exclusive rights for the name Ptasie mleczko. Its owner created the original "bird's milk" in 1936”. 

So that is it.  Other brands of “interesting foods will be available" in other people’s homes.

And extending out beyond Christmas, I am consrtantly attracted to the food served up by Jewish friends during Hanukkah.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; special treats from Naples and Warsaw, 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in_12.html

** Ptasie Mleczko, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptasie_mleczko

Four screws, a couple of nails and a gallon of paraffin ....... Beech Road before now

I am looking at a picture of Beech Road from 1979, which I took just three years after I settled here.

Hardware, grapes and melons, 1979

It’s not a remarkable image and that is the point.

To the extreme right just beyond the edge of the photograph was Mr. Henderson’s butcher’s shop while just in view is the hardware store and next to it what had been a Howarth’s greengrocers.

But I rather think that by 1979 Howarth’s has passed into the hands of the plant and flower shop whose main business was located on Wilbraham Road.

Washing, photos and lots more, 1969

Today almost 50 years on butcher’s is a clothes shop and the hardware and green grocers have become a studio and gallery.

Back all those decades ago this stretch of Beech Road was a mix of retail businesses, offering up all the usual stuff, from waxed string and paraffin to sliced Sunblest, potatoes and much more.

The much more included a fabric shop, several bakeries, a launderette, three butcher’s shops as well two offi’s and a barber’s, to which I could add the short-lived Amusement Arcade and Sunflowers.

All of which many will remember with fondness in that time when you still shopped locally and daily because the fridge and freezer revolution had yet to arrive.

Looking back it is easy to fall into the trap of nostalgia, but it’s as well to remember that despite the number of grocery stores, the variety of food on offer was limited, and sometimes perilously close to their sell by dates.

I still recall our local shop in Peckham which was full of tinned food and had a choice of cheese …. white or red while proudly displaying their biscuits in open boxes for all to paw through.

It had the lot, 1979

All perhaps a tad grim, but set against this was that Aladin’s Cave which was the hardware store, where you could buy four screws, a couple of nails and a light bulb taking in that pungent mix of smells which came from the bare floor boards, paraffin and freshly sawn timber.

So, to re-echo an older theme, was it better back then or just different?

Hand written answers on a postcard with a 1d postage stamp of the old Queen affixed in the space indicated.

Location; Beech Road before now

Pictures, numbers 38 & 40 Beech Road, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1969 from Manchester & Salford Directory, courtesy of Andy Robertson

A happy Christmas from the 1950s

 It's not often you get a Christmas card from the 1950s dropping through the letter box.

Anyone who regularly read the Eagle comic will recognise the rocket ship and the names Digby and the Meakon.

At which point l shall not say any more about the two or the Christmas decorated ship hurtling through space.

Instead l will just confess that the card was no time travelling bit of Christmas cheer, instead it came from The Eagle Society that society of like minded happy bunch dedicated to keeping the memory of the Eagle alive.*

And ofcourse l have been one of those happy members for four decades and an "Eagler" since 1957.

The card was last year's offering and l eagerly await the 2025 one.

Pictures; Christmas Card from the Eagle Society, 2024, and Operation Silence from the Eagle Annual, 1956.

*The Eagle Society; https://eagle-times.blogspot.com/

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ........... nu 4 two for one

Now I am the first to admit the lighting is all wrong and I suspect the composition is iffy but its a picture of a bridge.

Which actually contains two ....... one behind the other and three if you count the  the footbridge.

And that is all I am going to say.

Location Salford

Picture; the river and the bridge, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Stories of the Great War from Eltham and Woolwich ............. nu 1 the milestone on Shooters Hill

An occasional series reflecting on the impact of the Great War.

Now I have to say I never really knew the story of the war memorial outside Christ Church on Shooters Hill.

I will have passed it countless times, but when you are young war memorials scarcely register especially when there is the promise of an unknown adventure in the woods behind.

But reading it now is to be reminded of the terrible loss of life during the Great War.

The inscription is simple and to the point.

What gives the memorial its added significance is that it is part of an older milestone of which I knew nothing.

And for that knowledge I have Tricia Lesley to thank who unearthed a wonderful history of Woolwich which gives a detailed description of the milestone and the war memorial.

“Originally on the other side of the road, having been placed there by the New Cross Turnpike Trust, the eighth milestone out of London on the Old Dover Road was accidentally fractured by a Borough Council steam roller during road repairs in 1903.

The Dartford plate had been totally destroyed in the collision.

It was thrown aside to be broken up but Vicar Wilson, with authority from the Borough Engineer removed the pieces to the church grounds where they were dowelled together and set up near the church door.

When the church war memorial was being discussed, Col. Bagnold, chairman of the parish war memorial committee, suggested fixing on the eastern side of the stone a plate indicating the distance to Ypres, with the addition of figures telling of the casualties incurred in defending the salient.  

The Director-general of the Ordinance Survey was called and arrived at the figure of 130 miles to the cloth Hall, correct to one-tenth of a mile.

The whole memorial was unveiled by Major General Sir Webb Gillman and dedicated by the Rector of Woolwich in October, 1922."*

All of which leaves me to say I have the book on order, and wish I had the opportunity to repeat the magic adventure in the woods.

Pictures; memorial stone, courtesy of Running Past, @running_past, Shooters Hill, courtesy of Jean Gammons, 1977 and cover of The Woolwich Story 

* The Woolwich Story, 1970, E. F. E. Jefferson.

Two parks .....a recreation ground ..... the stolen village green ..... and the Mersey Valley ... now that's our new book

 The story of Chorlton’s open spaces has yet to be told, and with that story will come heaps of memories.

Alexandra Park, 1937

And prompted by those two thoughts, Peter and I have embarked on the our next book which will explore the stories of all our open spaces from the Rec on Beech Road, to Chorlton Park, Alexandra Park and that large open piece of land out by the Mersey.

Chorlton Park, circa 1930s

Along the way we will take in Chorlton Green which was stolen by Sam Wilton sometime in the early 19th century, and only returned to the village after the death of his last daughter in the 1890s..

Added to this we will include a chapter on the bowling greens as well as the fields and market gardens when Chorlton was still a rural community.

We are particulary pleased that my old friend David Bishop has agreed to write the chapter on the Meadows.  

The Meadows, 2019

David is a well known botanist who regularly is asked to speak on a range of topics related to his work and recently addressed an American University.  

He was in at the beginning of the project to turn the neglected area of land by the river into the Mersey Valley, and in fact started exploring the area soon after the sewage works had closed down in the 1970s.

There will be those who question the inclusion of Alexandra Park, but both our families have used the facility over the years, and I bet lots of Chorlton people also have fond memories, so it’s in the book.

Nor will we stop there because we could also include people's gardens, providing of course they would be happy to show them off, once a year when Chorlton proud gardeners open their gardens to the public.

The Meadows, 1979

And that just brings me to the request because there will be lots of people with their own stories, and pictures which we would like to include., and of course those gardens. 

These can be sent as a comment to the blog, or to the Facebook sites, Chorlton History, and Glad to be in Chorlton, or by phone to me on 0161 861 0105.

So to start you all off.  There was a barrage balloon of the Recreational Ground, Chorlton Green once had a drinking fountain, The Meadows regularly hosted winter skating and Chorlton Park was built with a civic theatre.

The lost drinking fountain, Chorlton Green, circa 1900

Location; Chorlton and a few bits beyond

Picture; Sunday in Alexandra Park, 1937, from Manchester, heart of the Industrial North, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 1937, Chorlton Park circa 1930s, and the lost water fountain on Chorlton Green, circa 1900, the Lloyd Collection, and the Meadows in 2019, and 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Eltham we have lost, part 2........ The old lane by the National Schools, 1908

Another of those pictures of Eltham’s past which need no comment

This is the old lane by the National Schools as it was in 1908.  The lane is now Archery Road and 'One acre Allotments' was on the right.









Picture; the old lane,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

Christmas from the Western Front .......

Christmas is supposed to be the season of goodwill but war has a habit of twisting the message.

This Christmas card was sent by my uncle to my father on December 12th 1918. The Great War had ended just a month before and uncle Fergus and his battalion of the Black Watch were in Cologne, relieved no doubt that the fighting was over.

On that Thursday in December he wrote that “Cologne was a lovely city with some fine cinemas” but they were prohibited from fraternizing with the civilians which for a young man of just 21 was a bit of a bore given the attractive young women he came across.

But duty was never far away and preparations were a foot because “we are crossing the Rhine tomorrow” and there was a determination “to show the rest of the division the way as we proved to be the finest marchers during the trek to Germany.”


Picture; With Best wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Victorious New Year, December 1918 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ........... nu 3 how things change

I recently included much the same view along the river in the 1850s by the artist C W Clennell.

And then I was back in 2016.

Location Salford











Picture; the river and the bridge, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ......... nu 2 Victoria Bridge, sometime in the 1850s

Now there is not much more to say.

 It is the work of C W Clennel sometime in the 1850s.
But there is more.
And for that I am indebted to Alan who quick as a flash, added that

"Haha, I beg to differ Andrew, there is much to say, for instance the first mention of the bridge over the river Irwell was in the Lancashire Inquisitions of 1226. 

In 1368 Thomas Bothe a wealthy Yeoman of Barton on Irwell bequeathed £30 in his will to the Bridge on which he had previously built a chapel.where prayers were to be said for the soul of the founder.In 1505, the Chapel was converted to a prison.

On September 25th 1642 was the Battle of Salford Bridge between the Parliamentary forces and the Royalists. 

On July 1776 the bridge was widened by taking down the Dungeon and extending its piers and arches. 

On July 2nd 1838 the first stone on the Salford side of Victoria Bridge was laid by Mr Elkanah Armitage, the Borough Reeve of Salford and on July the 2nd the first stone on the Salford side was laid by Mr J Brown, Borough Reeve of Manchester.

On October 16th, the central arches were washed away.

On January 7th 1839 the arches of Victoria bridge were once again destroyed in a Gale. There were to be many more great floods, but the bridge appears to have escaped further damage, here ends my little hisory of Victoria Bridge...... "

And I think pretty much does justice to the old bridge.  Thank you Alan

Location; Salford

Picture, Victoria Bridge, C W Clennell, m77145 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

On Eltham High Street looking south from the new Well Hall Road in 1909

It is one of those scenes that just about makes sense.

This is Eltham High Street in 1909 and the Grey Hound is fairly obvious as is the building to its left, but the others have gone.

Now as you would expect there are stories here which I shall come to when we walk this side of the High Street taking in Back lane, various pubs and some more fine houses.

Location Eltham, London

Picture; from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

A little bit of our history ............. buying a house in 1978

Now here is a fascinating bit of our collective history from the attic of Mr and Mrs Clinning.

It dates from 1978 and comes from the estate agent of H. Frank Dawson who pretty much dominated the housing market in Chorlton for most of the last century.

For those of us who wanted to buy or sell a house in the area Dawson’s were the first port of call.  They were also connected with the story of Chorltonville and so can be reckoned to be bound up with the history of the township.

And that brings me to the sheet advertising the sale of Newport Road.

There will be many who will gasp at the asking price of £7, 950, and the rateable value of £139.

But everything is relative and I well remember that my earnings and the scary rise in inflation which seemed to go up almost month by month made the repayments quite a challenge.

I have to thank Mr and Mrs Clinning’s daughter Liz for the leaflet.  She was born just two years after her mum and dad bought the property and was fascinated by some of the details of the house.

Back then few houses had central heating and more than a few had been “improved“with polystyrene ceiling tiles.

There is more but I will leave you to find it.

Location; Chorlton







Picture; property leaflet, 1978 courtesy of the Clinning family.

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 156 ..... the telly that makes you feel ancient

 The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

We all have those moments when you realize just how many years have passed you by.

For me it can be any one of a heap of things from the comics of my youth, the shocking revelation that I grew up eating sugar sandwiches, or that back in the 1950s our first phone was shared with another family, which meant we could only use it when they weren’t but we could listen into their conversations.

But today it is the telly, and not any telly but the one we rented which offered up just three channels.  It was colour and was a recent upgrade from a black and white one and yes to change channels you had to get up, cross the room and push the button.

No fancy remote gadget for which every family spawned a different name, which in our case was “the dit dit”.  

Of course, the absence of one meant we couldn’t lose it and end up arguing about who had lost it, only to find it down the side of the settee two hours later.

But it did have a wooden case which allowed you to polish it and think it was really a bit of furniture.

And that I suppose was a step forward from our first 1950s set which had double doors with a walnut finish which I I suppose was a statement about how tellies were not yet fully accepted and had to be hidden as a piece of something else.

This particular set dates from 1978 and is a reminder that the first colour transmissions by the BBC were only a decade earlier.

I remember going to the Welcome Inn one summer afternoon to watch Wimbledon, not that I am a tennis fan rather it was the novelty of watching one of the first colour transmission.

The observant will spot that we rented this set.  In those years we were customers of both Visionhire and Rediffusion, although I can’t quite remember which we finished up with.  Suffice to say I think Visionhire occupied a double fronted shop on Barlow Moor Road, and Rediffusion or maybe Granada were almost opposite on the corner of St Annes and Barlow Moor Roads.

As a story it’s not perhaps the most dramatic piece of history but is how we lived in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and looking at the set now I do feel old.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Our telly, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

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

Now I have to confess that this picture of Manchester Assize Courts interests me more for 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.

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

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ....... nu 1 Blackfriars Bridge sometime in the 1850s

Now of course it does really depend on which way you cross the bridge.

But I am not a pedant.

And I am not inclined to add anything more, save to say it is another by the artist Mr C W Clennell who strolled into Salford from Manchester sometime in the 1850s and this was the result.

So far I have come across four of paintings featuring Salford.

And that is al I am going to say.

Location; Salford

Picture, Blackfriars Bridge, C W Clennell, , m77146 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Queenscroft, the one you can miss

Queenscroft, 2013 

Queenscroft is one of those places you can miss which is a pity because it has a rich history dating back to 1720 and maybe even earlier.

And not for the first time I am struck by one of the major differences between Eltham where I grew up and Chorlton cum Hardy where I have lived for the last 37 years.

Both were small rural communities on the edge of big cities, and both were seen by those with money as a good place to live.

But Chorlton had fewer of those big fine houses and all of them have now vanished save two modest properties unlike Eltham which had more and has been lucky enough to keep many of them.

During the last century most of them have changed their use but they are still there.

A once elegant home

Which brings me back to Queenscroft which stands at 150 Eltham Hill next to a larger neo Georgian block of yellow brick built in 1973.

Today the property is not seen at its best.

It is sandwiched between other properties and is close to the road, so that the only way to fully take in its splendour is to stand on the opposite side of Eltham Hill and gaze at it between passing traffic.

But just a century ago it was still set well back from the highway behind a stone wall and sixty years earlier commanded fine views at the rear across open land.

To the east and behind the house was an orchard and then just fields all the way down to the Palace.

Queens Croft in 1909 with garden wall and orginal spelling

It had fourteen rooms and a little of its former elegance can be seen from the well proportioned windows and front entrance.

At the turn of the last century it was occupied by a Colonel Tasker and then by Lieutenant Edward Beddington and his wife Elsie, their two young sons and five servants.

In 1911 Lieutenant Edward Beddington was 27 and an officer in the 16th Lancers and according to his military record was one of the “Old Contemptibles” who had fought in the opening months of the Great War in France.  Unlike so many of the British Expeditionary Force he survived the war and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel and died in 1926.

In time it should be possible track most of the families of Queenscroft over the last two centuries, and one has already come to light.

Looking east up the hill with the church in background

This was John and Elizabeth Garland who were there by 1841 and may have been living in the house on the hill by 1837.

In that year John who was a wine merchant is listed as paying land tax in Eltham and two years later is in the tithe schedule.

There after he appears in various directories, the 1851 census and the poll book for 1852 which also records that he voted Liberal in the General Election.

He died in Eltham in the January of 1854 and was buried in the parish church Elizabeth his wife survived him by another twelve years.

Queenscroft in 1874

I shall return to the people of Queenscroft because there will be other stories of the people who lived behind its front door.

And only today my friend Jean has gone off to check out more of its history including a memory of going there to arrange a visit from the sweep who lived in the place.

So that just leaves the map of the area with Queenscroft in 1870 with the house in red.

Pictures; Queenscroft,  1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm
Queenscroft today from the collection of Jean Gammons  and map of Eltham from the OS map of Kent, 1858-74

With Elizabeth Jane Hunt and three children in a two roomed house in Eltham in 1911

This is the White Hart on a summer’s day in 1909, and it was going to be the subject of the story.

Mrs Ann Nunn who ran the five roomed pub was 59 years old had been born in Suffolk and was a widow.

During the twenty or so years before 1909 she had run another pub on King Arthur Street a few minutes’ walk from New Cross Road.  Back then it was a densely packed part of south east London close to an iron works and in the shadow of the viaduct of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Now I don’t yet know when her husband died but I think it may have been in 1897.  Either way she was still in King Arthur Street in 1901 and will have moved into the White Hart sometime aftter the January of 1908 and had gone by 1918.  Now I know this because she does not show up on either the street directories for 1908 and 1918 but is there on the sign above the door of the pub in 1909 and fills in her census return two years later.

But as things do I was drawn away from Mrs Nunn and instead wandered a little further up the street, stopping first at Harry Harvey’s fruit and greengrocer’s shop next door.

It is one of those remarkable examples of just how many people can be squeezed into a small property.

Here in the two rooms above the shop lived Mr and Mrs Harvey their two young children and the 18 years old assistant Frederick Walter Saunders.

Nor were the Harvey’s the only family to juggle overcrowded conditions, for around the corner in another two properties with just two rooms each lived the Chapman family of four and Mrs Hunt and her three children.

And it is Elizabeth Jane Hunt’s story that draws you in.  Her three children were aged, 10, 8 and 6, and for her the juggling began with having to have her daughter in her bedroom leaving the two boys to share the downstairs room beside the scullery.

She had been married for eleven years and worked a charwoman, which was not an easy job.

The date of her husband’s death has eluded me so far but I know he was called Charles and worked as a “Steel and Grass Borer in the Gas Works", and in the April of 1901 Elizabeth and Charles were living on the Broadway in Bexleyheath not far from Gravel Hill.  There is a record of a Charles Hunt who died in 1907 which puts their youngest child at just two years old.

His death may have occasioned the move to 4A the High Street and those two rooms hard by the White Hart.

I don’t have a picture of the properties but they look to have been built with one room above the other and a lean to scullery or kitchen attached.

Alternatively they may have been part of number 4 which was the shop run by the Harvey's/  If so this makes that property a much larger one with six rooms which will have been subdivided.

Either way neither Elizabeth Jane or Mr amd Mrs Chapman appear on those street directories which either means the rooms were vacant or that they were not deemed important enough to be listed at number 4.

I am hoping that someone will have a picture, but in the meantime I am forced back to that of the White Hart.

Pictures; the White Hart in 1909, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

Looking for the story of Graeme House and that Chorlton Shopping Precinct

Graeme House and Safeway, 1971

We don’t do recent history very well.

I guess it is simply because we take it for granted and don’t even see it as history.

Added to which it is sometimes quite difficult to track down the story.

So when I washed up in Chorlton in the mid 1970s the shopping precinct, Graeme House and that car park were a done deal, but only just.

They had replaced a set of houses and cut Manchester Road in two leaving just two properties as witness to what had once been.

Shops to let, 1971

You can find a few people who remember those houses and one of my friends attended a private school on that lost stretch of Manchester Road, but the memories are fading.

And to date I have found just a handful of photographs recording the demolished houses which ran along Wilbraham Road, Manchester Road, and Barlow Moor Road.

Part of the problem is that such developments don’t warrant being recorded in history books, so Mr Lloyd’s two books skip over the building of the precinct and the book written by Cliff Hayes has just a picture.*

From the Guardian, 1973

Of course the planning applications along with the deliberations of the Planning Committee should still be available but having crawled over the documents relating to the development of Hough End Hall a little earlier this can be long tedious and sometimes unrewarding.

All of which just leaves the local newspapers which will have recorded the events.

Graeme House and car park, 1973

And that has so far thrown up an advert for the remaining offices to still to be let in 1971 and a few photographs of Graeme House and the precinct.

Sadly I am no nearer to knowing why it was called Graeme House.

Intriguingly I did come across Graeme Shankand who was a planning consultant and architect who worked on projects in the North West.

It is a tenuous link but in the process did introduce me to a very interesting architect, who played an important part in founding the William Morris Society.

The precinct, 1973

But that as they say is for another time.

So for now I shall close with the memory of shopping in Safeway not long after it had opened in the precinct.

It was bright, busy and at the time the biggest supermarket in Chorlton, and for a while continued to operate after its bigger store had opened by the old railway station.

Now that should have been the end but to reaffirm that simple observation that history is messy, only hours after I posted the story Ste Passant suggested that the office block may have been named after Henry John Greame Lloyd who cropped up on a legal document.

Now I rather think that he was part of the Lloyd family that owned a large part of Chorlton coming from the same area and leaving £151,021 10s on his death in 1919.

All of which just leaves me to go off and search the records.

Pictures; the Shopping Precinct and Graeme House, H.Milligan, 1971, m17408, m19763, m17832, m17405 and Graeme House, The Guardian, October 22, 1973, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Township of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1972,  Looking Back at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, John M Lloyd, 1985, CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Cliff Hayes, 1999

** Graeme Shankand, John Kay, http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/W84-85.6.2.Kay.pdf

*** Buldoze and be damned, Terence Bendixson, the Guardian January 8 1969

A lost pub on Fairfield Street

This is the Bridge Inn on Fairfield Street as it was in 1970.

And it is a pub I will have passed countless times on the bus on the journey to Grey Mare Lane and Ashton.

But despite living for a chunk of time in east Manchester and beyond in the 1970s, I can’t say I ever noticed the pub and certainly never went in it, and that is a shame.

I can track a pub with that name to this spot back to 1840, when it was surrounded by a mix of industrial and residential properties.

According to the 1911 census, the landlord was a Fred Lord, who with his wife Elizabeth managed the pub, assisted by Arthur Dixon who was the waiter and Ethel Jackson who was described as a domestic servant.

And along with these were the Lord’s daughter, young Vera Patricia, aged 3, and Mr. Lord’s widowed mother.

The same census offers both a   glimpse into the pub, and into its occupants.

It had eight rooms, and may already have been familiar to Elizabeth who had been born in Ardwick and to Elizabeth’s mother in law who was born just up the road in Bradford.

What strikes you are the little details.  Ethel Jackson was just sixteen, Mrs. Lord senior was already a widow at 52, and the Lord’s had moved around the city, having been in Gorton in 1908.

And for an official document Fred Lord was less than conscientious about completing the form accurately having, failed to ascertain exactly where his 22 years old waiter had been born, so while I know it was WR, which may have been Whalley Range, the county is shown just as an ?.

Of course, it may also be that Arthur Dixon didn’t know his exact birth place.

Someone I know will be able to supply a date for when it closed, but for now, that is it, other than to say there remain some stories of the surrounding buildings which we will return to.

Location; Fairfield Street

Pictures; the Bridge Inn, 1970, A. Dawson, m49287, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and in 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Just what 46 years does to a bit of Wilbraham Road

Now I can remember this bit of Wilbraham Road in the late 1970s.

I shopped in Liptons, ate in the Asian restaurant next door and bought a couple of holidays from the travel agents and the rest of the shops are a blur although I think one was a Butcher’s and of course along the row was the toy shop.

And so it makes a nice contrast to Andy Robertson picture of the same spot in 2014.

There is more I could say but will just leave you with the observation that if you look closely you can see how the mobile shop and Rainbow trade from a building which was added on to the original house.

Nor was this unique on Wilbraham Road but that is for you to find out, along of course with the fate of the buildings where Liptons and the the Post Office now stand.

For the lazy the answer is there in the blog.
And the postscript is that the mobile shop is now Chocoberry.

Pictures; Wilbraham Road circa 1979 from the Lloyd Collection and the same spot today courtesy of Andy Robertson

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 4 on discovering coal mines by our front door and a dreadful pit accident

Now if I am honest they were just a bit further away and had long ago been abandoned.

I shouldn’t have been over surprised.  After all we had started our life together in the shadow of Bradford Colliery which despite having closed in1968 still maintained its surface gear as a reminder of what had been.

And of course on that long bus ride from town there was always the Snipe to pass.  Added to this Kay was from a mining family who were still working the coal when we met and married.

So coal and all that went with it was pretty much part of the backdrop of our lives.

But that said no one expects to walk out of the house onto Whiteacre Road and be confronted with a coal mine.

This was not in the surveyors report or in the happy helpful comments of the estate agent when in 1973 we became house owners.

In fact the first I knew about it was when I idly thumbed through a copy of Victorian Ashton.*

There on page 89 in the chapter on the Industrial Archaeology of Ashton-Under-Lyne were the coal mines laid out on a map both to the north east of our house and a little to east.

Of course they had long since been closed and capped and all that remained was an open space.

Given of course the history and geography of the northwest it was an obvious discovery, but a little unsettling.

That said my curiosity didn’t last too long and only 40 years after I made that discovery have I decided to dig deeper.

The shafts are clearly marked on the 1853 OS for Lancashire and appear fifty years later as “Old Pits, 1, 2 and 3” and belonged to John Kenworthy and Brothers.

Pits no 2 and 3 were on that stretch of land between Whiteacre Road and Cricket’s Lane while just across Mossley Road was  pit number 1.

This was Heys Colliery and it was here that in the March of 1851 an underground explosion resulted in the deaths of five men.

James Ogden “was killed by the explosion on Monday last, and the others have since died from the effects of the injuries which they received.”**

These were James Wright Andrew, John Booth and William Joule.

The inquest heard that the airways were not kept open and this led to a build up of gas which should not have happened.  Mr Miller, the underlooker who was responsible for this had been warned in the past but chose to ignore the warnings.  "He knew that William Joule worked with his naked lamp, and where [Joule] worked the air should be pure.”

On his own admission the Mr Miller knew that to clear the air roads would “have taken two men a fortnight to have cleared them properly” and this was not done.

Witness after witness pointed to the negligence of Mr Miller and after a short deliberation the jury decided that “these men came by their death by accident; and it is the wish of the jury that a government inspector be requested to examine the mine; and the jury consider the underlooker has neglected his duty”

So far that is about it.  Of the five who died William Joule aged 33 left a widow and three children, the historical record has yet to shed anything on James Ogden who whose only official entry is his death certificate.

That said both James Wright Andrew, and John Booth can be found in the 1841 census returns for Ashton and maybe I will return to follow them up.  As for Mr Miller and the colliery company they have  passed into the shadows.

All of which I knew nothing of until fired by the memory of those disused pits I began looking for their story.

Pictures, from the OS for Lancashire 1841-53 and the OS for South Lancashire 1888-94 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and extract from the Manchester Guardian March 22, 1851, courtesy of  Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

*Victorian Ashton, Ed Sylvia A Harrop & E A Rose, 1974

**Manchester Guardian March 22, 1851