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

Wishing you were here.......Eltham in the past, Nu 2 looking west from the High Street

Now if you don’t know Eltham or like me have been away from the place for a long time, there is always Google Street maps which will place you at the same spot and allow you to do your own comparisons.

Pictures; looking west towards the church   from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers 

Renshaws Buildings in Martledge

Even I have to admit that this bit of road and kerb stone is not the most exciting picture of Chorlton and yet it is all that is left of Martledge that part of the old township which ran from the four banks down to the library.

All this week I have been writing about the place and today I want to focus on the building which ran along the side of this bit of road.  It was a block of six or maybe 12 dwellings and was variously known as New Buildings or Renshaws Buildings.

It was set at right angles to what is now Barlow Moor Road and in its time must have looked the part. It had a large impressive gable end and despite being farm cottages dominated this part of Martledge.

The block was owned and may have been built by John Renshaw sometime before 1832.  He was a market gardener living in a farm house on the Row* who also owned a number of cottages around the township.  Some at least would have been wattle and daub structures but Renshaws Buildings were made of brick.

Now I can be fairly confident that they predate 1832 because they are listed as part of his property qualification which entitled him to a Parliamentary vote in the newly reformed House of Commons.

And it maybe that they represent the first building boom here in Chorlton in the 1840s and 40s by speculative tradesmen who wanted to cash in on the population increase or maybe just the desire of local people to live in a house made of brick rather than wood, mud and straw.


It is unclear how many units there were but the evidence from the census and the old maps suggests that they were one up one down back to back dwellings.  By the beginning of the 20th century part of the block had been converted into commercial use and just before their demolition this bit was a garage.

They came down sometime in the 1920s or 30s to make way for the present Royal Oak pub.  I wish we had some written memories of what they were like but sadly we don’t.  On the other hand we do have a few photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries along with details of who lived there from the 1840s and the rents they paid, but for all that it is back to the book where you can see Barris’ reconstruction picture of Renshaws Buildings in more detail.  It is based on a number of the photographs and maps and we are looking at it from the west, as if were heading into the township from Manchester.  The kerb stone and narrow road are hidden on its eastern side.

*Today this is Beech Road and his home was on the site of Ivy Court facing the Rec

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Barri Sparshot

A little bit of Eltham in the stories of Edith Nesbit, writer, socialist and resident at Well Hall House

The old Woolwich Road, 1909

Now I have set myself the task of reading the stories of Edith Nesbit and looking for Eltham.

She lived in Well Hall House from the late 19th century into the 20th and those in the know reckon they can spot the references.

I never read her books when I was growing up and have to confess that I only came to know of the Railway Children which is one of her most famous books when the film came out.

So to rectify this omission and to see if the descriptions of the house the children lived in and the countryside they played around matches the Eltham of the late 19th century I shall trawl her books.

And before someone mutters “he clearly needs to get out more,” I reckon it will fulfil a couple of goals.

Well Hall House, date unknown

First it will involve reading  some children’s classics and it will allow me to wander the lanes of Well Hall, and the fields stretching north to the woods and south to the Palace sometime between the 1890s and the 1920s.

And in all of this I shall be aided by the wonderful pictures and descriptions of Eltham from R.R.C.Gregory’s history of Eltham, published in 1909 and still a must for anyone wanting to know the history of the area.*

I doubt that there will always be an exact match and not all of the books will contain any references but perhaps enough to add to what I already know about both her home and the area over a century ago.

And  she was far more than just a little old lady who wrote children’s books.

Her marriage appears to be what we might today describe as an open one and she adopted two children from her husband’s relationship with another woman who was employed as their house keeper.

She was one of the founder members of the Fabian Society, a member of the Social Democratic Federation and wrote and spoke regularly on socialism.

Amongst her friends were H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and the Webb’s, all of whom visited the house in Well Hall.

She was also a member of the local Labour Party and it was here she met Tommy Tucker an engineer on the Woolwich Ferry., who she married three years after the death of her husband Hubert.

Edith Nesbit

All of which fits nicely as like Edith, Hubert and Tommy I was also a member of the same local Labour Party.

Woolwich Labour Party was formed in 1903.  At that time the Woolwich constiuency took in Woolwich and Eltham, and even when it was split between Woolwich East and Woolwich West for the 1918 General Election the Labour Party took the decision to stay as one party.

So when I joined in 1966 aged just 16 I was walking with Edith, Hubert and Tommy.

And one of her books has already begun to reveal that old Eltham.

This is the Red House published in 1902, and named I guess after the home of William Morris.  But as the story unfolds it is clear that the house is Well Hall House.

It was demolished in 1928 after a fire, but the opening chapters recreate the property down to the ivy which covered part of the back,  the gardens and the interior.

Now there may be some images of the inside of the place, along with plans and descriptions but at present all I have is the Red House.

But that is an exciting start.

Pictures; The old Woolwich Road, circa 1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers,http://gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm
Well Hall House, from The Edith Nesbit Society,http://www.edithnesbit.co.uk/ and Edith Nesbit from Wikipedia Common

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 1 washing up on Raynham Street

Whiteacre Road and the corner of Raynham Street

Now if you have to start off your life together at the tender age of 23 and 21 respectively then Ashton in the mid 1970s was a pretty good choice.

We had begun by renting just off the Old Road opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and when we started on the property ladder it seemed natural to start looking around there.

But the houses were not available and bit by bit we moved up Ashton Old Road and finally in 1973 crossed the municipal border and washed up in Raynham Street.

A two up two down down, close to the town centre and it even had a small Corporation allotment directly opposite.

Of course the downside was that I worked in Wythenshawe and travelled on public transport which meant that during the winter I only got to see Ashton in the daylight at the weekend.

Raynham Street

But that still left plenty of time to explore the town, the surrounding districts and to venture out into the countryside.

Not that this is some nostalgic trip seen through a rosy coloured perspective, but just an occasional piece reflecting on what the town was like for two young people who had been born at opposite ends of the country.

Raynham Street was just what we wanted and for me it was just a matter of exchanging one terraced house for another .

There was also a  sense of community which appealed to us.  We both came from close knit areas, me from south East London and Kay from a mining village in the North East, and having done our three years of rootless living in south Manchester student land we were ready for something different.

We got to know our neighbours, found our favourite stalls in the covered in market and having transferred our membership to the Ashton Labour Party made new friends.

Some were like us, first time buyers straight out of grim multi occ properties in Withington, Fallowfield and Longsight and others could count their family generations back to an earlier Ashton.

We regularly attended meetings in the old PSA building with Glyn and Hazel, introduced our families to the delights of Stamford Park and the Sycamore and occasionally managed to entice friends out of the city to come and stay.

Penny Meadow & Whiteacre Road, 1972

I could never quite understand why they thought it was such an adventure, to us it was a comfortable and easy place to settle.

And even now on those rare occasions I come back the place still has an effect on me.

It begins as the tram pulls up just short of the town centre and extends as I wander through the market place and up to St Michael’s.

That said I can’t quite get my head around the new retail park and I miss the Arcadia along with the PSA building and wonder when the mural to the jubilee in 1977 painted on the gable end of the butcher’s shop on the corner of Whiteacre and Egerton Road vanished.

All of which smacks of the nostalgic trip I promised not to take.

Instead I shall ponder for a future post on the Ashton I remember from the 1970s.

Pictures; Raynham Street, date unknown, t03175 and t03175, and Penny Meadow at the junction with Whiteacre Road and Crickets Lane, 1972, t01388, courtesy of Tameside Image Archive, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

Looking for the first carol singer in Chorlton-cum-Hardy ...and other Christmas traditions

As titles go it is a bit daft even for a history blog, and I guess ranks with Carol Singer bites dog and the carol singers who started singing in Easter.

But it sets me off on a story which touches on Christmas in Chorlton across the centuries.

Mr Wittaker sells Christmas, 1906

And what better than this picture of Mr. Whitaker and his two assistants outside his grocery shop on the corner of Beech Road and Chorlton Green in the run up to a Christmas long ago.  

The date is 1906 and judging by the adverts for “CHOICE NEW CURRANTS AND SULTANAS [for] XMAS”and the boxes of Mincemeat we must be in late November or December.

Standing in front of the shop by the open door in Thomas who was 40 years old when the picture was taken and to his right is his son “Charlie” and away in the corner is Mr Fox who the caption tells us was about to become the manager of the Stanley Grove shop.

Now it says something about the concentration of people around the green that old Thomas Whittaker could feel it made business sense to open another shop just round the corner and off the green, and later had another store I am told on Ivy Green Road.

Choice Xmas Currants, sardines and Bovril

But the captions and the photograph do not quite fit.  If the date is indeed 1906 then the figure to the left of Thomas Whitaker cannot be his son Charlie who would have been just ten years old, and while the Fox family lived at 19 Stanley Grove there is no evidence that they were running a shop at any time between 1903 and 1911.

Singing on the green, 2022

All of which is becoming too complicated.  So I shall to reflect on the picture postcard of Beech Road on a summer’s day over printed with “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” and go back to carol singing.

Before the green was stolen by Sam Wilton and turned it into his private garden in the early 19th century it had been the centre of many village activities.

Then after it reurned to community use in the 1890s, there will have been a return of events of which one will have been centred around Christmas.

Just what shape that event took has yet to be discovered.

But for now the revival of carol singing around the Christmas tree set against the backdrops of the Horse and Jockey, the Lych Gate and the Bowling Green Hotel beyond has become a popular highligh of the festive season. ..... is back.

Join us on Christmas Eve at 6.15.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Mr Wittaker sells Christmas, 1906, from the Lloyd collection carol singing on the green, 2022, courtesy of Peter Topping and Christmas Eve on Beech Road waiting for the carol singers, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Christmas Eve, Beech Road waiting for the carol singers, 2022

A Beech Road that has now passed out of living memory

Now I have a soft spot for Beech Road, it is after all where I have lived since 1976. 

And for years I wondered why the pavement widens briefly almost opposite Reeves Road which was of course to accommodate the big tree.

What I also like about the photograph is that it is a view that has long since passed out of living memory and part at least had not changed in perhaps 80 years.

I can be fairly sure that it dates from 1907 when the houses on the left were built and no later than 1909 when the estate of Beech House on the right was sold and the big house demolished.

Beech House had been the home of the Holt family from the 1830s until the last of the family died in 1907. By 1909 the eastern side of the garden running along Barlow Moor Road had been acquired by the Corporation, its wall demolished and a stretch of it was about to become the tram terminus.

The remaining stretch would in time be developed to include Malton Avenue the Palais de Luxe cinema opened in 1915 and the parade of shops.

But now on that winter day it was still possible to see the outline of Beech House and beyond the row of terraced houses to the south were the Bowling Green Farm and the village.

Picture; Beech Road circa 1907-1909 from the Lloyd collection

A demonstration …… and the search for a story …. Piccadilly 1943

Sometimes you come across an image that sets you off on a search for answers.

And this picture taken in 1943 in Piccadilly  is just one of those.

The caption is enigmatic to say the least, just, “Piccadilly Catholic demonstration, educational reform 1943”

I can’t get an exact date and none of the placards reveal much as to why so many Catholics assembled in the centre of Manchester at the height of the last war.

The Manchester Guardian failed to cover the event, and I have yet to trawl the local papers.

But this was during the discussions and the Parliamentary debates about what became the 1944 Education Act which “raised the school leaving age, transforming education into a continuous process from nursery to adult and aimed at suiting all talents” *

And while the Government was intent on retaining church involvement in education there arose the issue of funding for new denominational school buildings to replace many that were too small, too old and no longer adequate.

The cost of which was very high and could only be achieved by Government funding.

The White paper of 1942 had observed  “that the Churches with a financial problem greater in extent and no less urgent than that in respect of senior children. This is a problem which they have shown themselves quite unable to meet in recent years and which they are less than ever likely to be able to meet after the war.

51. If large numbers of children are not to be deprived of healthy and decent school conditions to say nothing of equal educational opportunities there is no disguising the fact that, unless a considerable number of voluntary schools are to be brought to an end and replaced by new provided schools, some further assistance from public funds must be found towards the maintenance and improvement of the premises, where such improvement is possible. 

Discussions carried on in recent months with the many interests concerned have satisfied the Government that there is a wide measure of agreement that voluntary schools should not be abolished but rather that they should be offered further financial assistance, accompanied by a corresponding extension of public control which will ensure the effective and economical, organisation and development of both primary and secondary education”.**

All of which alarmed some in the Catholic Church and led to protests including one held at The Hippodrome in Salford on September 12th 1943, which the Manchester Guardian reported “an audience of 2,500 called by the Roman Catholic Parents’ and Elector’s Association passed a resolution demanding the provision of public funds of school buildings where Roman Catholic children can be instructed in accordance with the wishes of their parents”.***

The issue was resolved but that is for another story.

In the meantime I wonder if our Piccadilly protest was linked to that meeting.

Answers on a postcard.

And answers there have been, with a promise from Lawrence Gregory to offer up more information on the issues surrounding the protest.

And Lawrence also pinpointed the event to October 10th, 1943 which was a Sunday, commentating that the demonstrators came from across the North West making up a protest of 50,000 on what was a "beautiful sunny afternoon".****

All the more remarkable given the travel restrictions and difficulties due to war time rail services and that "thousands of Catholics from this Diocese were away on active war service".

Added to which I have Bill Sumner to thank for correcting me for suggesting the demonstration occurred in Piccadilly Gardens, "they are actually on the bomb site behind the gardens where hundreds of buildings were burnt out or destroyed by the services to prevent further spread of fire due to incendiary bombs. 

The Piccadilly Gardens were surrounded by concrete air raid shelters as seen in the background and vegetable gardens for food rations instead of flowers".

Location; Piccadilly, 1943

Picture; “Piccadilly Catholic demonstration, educational reform 1943” m07352, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Schools, Manchester Guardian, December 19th, 1943

**White Paper Educational Reconstruction, 1943 pages12-13, https://www.education-uk.org/documents/official-papers/1943-wp-educational-reconstruction.html#03

***Roman Catholic Schools White Paper Protests September 13th, 1943, from the Almanac, 1944

****Henry Vincent, Bishop of Salford, 1943

Well Hall in the 1920s nu 1 ........... catching the train and watching out for the cows

A short occasional series on Well Hall in the 1920s.

Now I washed up in Eltham in the spring of 1964 and for two and half years made the daily  train journey back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys School which continued until I switched to Crown Woods.

I didn’t like Samuel Pepys over much and the trip from Well Hall to New Cross and back was pretty much the best bit of the day.

Even now I have fond memories of seeing the woods above out house come into view ast thetrain took that final bend and came into the station.

The trains were always packed but there was something about knowing you were coming home to Well Hall.

And I suspect Mr Jefferson may have shared that feeling, so here are some of his memories of the same station just 40 or so years before I used the station.

They are taken from the book he published in 1970.

“The railway station was called simply ‘Well Hall’ when we came and the platforms were not so long as they are now.  

A workman’s ticket cost 8d return to London and early workers making their way past the tumbledown ‘Well Hall’ which is now the Pleasaunce would frequently be hindered by cows coming up hawthorn-hedged Kidbrooke Lane and turning in at the wide gate in Well Hall Road.”*

Location; Well Hall

Picture; the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 page 202

When they took my railway station ...........

Now, as a rule I don’t object to change and even I could see the logic of building a new railway station yards from the old one and calling it Eltham.

That old familiar entrance, circa 1960s

In the great scheme of things the coming of the motorway and the loss of the bus terminus beside the station made perfect sense.

But a little of my youth vanished when Well Hall Railway Station was demolished.
More than that, no one told me.

I had left from that wooden platform in the September of 1969 for a new life in Manchester, and while I regularly returned home during the following two decades I was not prepared for the day I alighted from what I thought was the wrong station, with the wrong name, on the wrong side of the road.

The new bridge, 2013

I should of course have been warned by the conversation at the ticket office in Charing Cross when my  request for a single to Eltham Well Hall was met with a stony look and a sarcastic comment about not keeping up with news, which was a tad unfair given that my subscription to Railway News had lapsed the month before.

Only the intervention of the nice lady buying a season ticket for Welling saved the day.

Off on a jolly, 1966

Even now on those occasions I go home I never feel quite right walking through the brick and concrete building and yearn with a bit of silly nostalgia for the wooden railway station of my youth.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; Eltham Well Hall Railway Station & the High Street circa 1960s courtesy of Steve Bardrick, the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose and off from Well Hall, 1966, from the collection of Anne Davey

Barlow Hall, a court case and the promise of a park for Chorlton and Didsbury on the banks of the Mersey

It was one of those stories that you uncover by accident and will require lots more research but that won’t stop me beginning the tale.

Now I had been crawling over the Manchester Guardian looking for references to the opening months of the Great War and amongst other things there was a series of articles about the Corporation’s intention to buy the Barlow Hall estate and turn it into a park.

Lord Egerton had signalled his wish in the April of 1914 to sell the land for £50,000, which the Manchester Guardian reported “works out at more than a £150 an acre [and which] at present brings in an income of about £900 a year.  

The Parks Committee, in addition to inspecting the property, have had it valued at £30,800, or about £95 an acre.  

Their advisor in arriving at this figure took into consideration the fact that nearly 300 acres of the land is low lying, which raises difficulties in the matter of drainage and limits its usefulness, except of course, for such purposes as farming, recreation, and sewage treatment.”*

Added to which the Egerton estate reserved “the rights of drainage for the adjoin high land at present draining into the lower levels; provision for a quarter of the cost of maintain the river banks and certain restrictions affecting the use of the land for building, advertising and sewage purposes.  On the other hand, 

Lord Egerton would provide an entrance road, 80ft wide from Barlow Moor Road to Barlow Hall; a right of way, 50ft wide from Hardy Lane, Chorlton and an entrance to the land from Darley Avenue, in West Didsbury.”

Now there was opposition with letters to the Manchester Guardian, but at a small meeting of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Ratepayers Association a decision approved the purchase but the members present were concerned about the impact on the Golf Club whose links was owned by the Egerton estate and would be part of the purchase.

Despite the cost the Parks Committee decided to recommend the purchase to the Council in the September with Alderman Harrop arguing that this was a good deal particularly as it meant the acquisition of Barlow Hall for £25,000.

And that is as far as I have got although thee are also some fascinating glimpses into the life of the Hall when it was still the residence of Cunliffe Brooks which came from a high profile court case in 1900-01 which centred around the attempt of his widow and daughter to prove that his main domicile was Scotland, but that is for another time.

Pictures; Bluebell Wood, Barlow Ley, circa 1900, and west front of Barlow Hall, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

*The Proposed South Manchester Park, Manchester Guardian, April 30, 1914

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 3 on coming across Stamford Park and the Sycamore

Now it is all a bit different when you don’t grow up in a place, so when we discovered Stamford Park one Sunday it was special.

And given the size of our house on Raynham Street the open spaces just fitted the bill.

Now “the original park, south of Darnton Road, was opened in 1873 on land purchased for £15,000. 

The money was raised by public subscription together with a gift of 30 acres from the Earl of Stamford. The park was enlarged in 1891 by acquisition of Chadwick's Dam reservoir, the southern part of which was made into a boating lake and the northern part into a feeder lake and fishing lake. 

The last major addition was in 1929 with the donation of 4 acres which was devoted to a children's playground. The park was run by a joint committee from Ashton and Stalybridge until 1974, when it passed to Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council.”*

Now I knew none of this at the time and in fact only came across its story recently.
Back then, the walk in the park was a prelude for an evening in the Sycamore which became a favourite haunt of ours.

All of which just leaves me with the postcard which was produced by Tuck & Sons around 1909.

It was part of a set of six published by Whittaker & Sons of Stalybridge.

Sadly the card does not have a message on the back but other’s in the collection do and I rather think I shall return to these if only to report more fully on young Pattie who sent a card of Stalybridge to Miss Mary Jameson in the USA on April 25th 1909.

Pictures; Stamford Park, from the series Stalybridge, by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*Ashton-Under-Lyne, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ashton-Under-Lyne

**Parks and gardens UK, http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/3045

“Do They Know It’s Christmas”, ……… a VHS tape .... and that famine

Somewhere in the collection we still have “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, which I guess hasn’t been played for decades.

And while it is that time of year, I doubt normally it would get on to the turntable.

There will be a mix of reasons, not least because since 1984, there have been countless other famines, near famines and disasters which I am remain convinced were preventable.

The story of that song and its subsequent re-recordings in 1989, 2004 and 2014, is out there to be read.*

And I don’t intend to repeat what someone else has said and said better.

Instead I am intrigued by this VHS recording of the making of the song, which was acquired by my old friend David Harrop.

The copy was signed by Midge Ure and looks to be in a good state.

But it is a VHS recording which is a technology pretty much now consigned to history, although in it’s day for a full two decades it was what you used to watch films, and home TV recordings.

It saw off Betamax but was done for by the CD and now few would have a VHS machine to watch a tape like this.

And how ever much they were the bees knees in the 1970s through to the 90s, they were prone to faults and as often  happened would end up unravelling.

So, I thank David for sharing this one with me, although our machine was consigned to the dustbin long ago, and the few tapes that survived the cull have since ended up in charity shops.

Location; Manchester

Picture;  “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, VHS box, courtesy of David Harrop

*“Do They Know It’s Christmas”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_They_Know_It%27s_Christmas%3F

The story of one building in Chorlton over three centuries ...... part 4 Samuel and Sarah Nixon, Mr Hayes, Mrs Lothian and the Bone Man

Number 70 2013

The continuing story of one building in Chorlton over three centuries*

Number 70 Beech Road has been home to many businesses since it opened as a beer shop in 1832 and of all the people who lived there it is the Nixon’s who we know most about.

Now this is all the remarkable given that they occupied the house from the 1840s but that is often how historical research pans out.

Sadly closer to our own time much that would reveal the lives of people are locked away and subject to that 100 year rule.

But the records offer up much about the Nixon’s.

Samuel was born in Staffordshire in 1817 and by the 1830s his father was running that pub across the river by Jackson’s boat.

Mr and Mrs Nixon

In 1842 Samuel married Sarah Ann Mason whose father and grandfather ran the Bowling Green during the first three decades of the 19th century and also described themselves as Land Surveyors.

Given that both came from the pub trade it is not surprising that they took over the tenancy of the beer shop sometime around 1842 and continued running it till their deaths.

Samuel died in 1877 and Sarah Ann in 1886 and were buried in the parish church year where their gravestone can still be seen.

Their eldest son went on to run the stationer’s and post office next door and his son established the newsagents on the corner of Beech and Chequers Road.  Lionel the grandson married Hilda Brownlow whose family had made and mended wheels from their business at Lane End.

The Travellers Rest, circa 1901

Number 70 continued a beer shop until the early years of the 20th century and we can track a number of tenants, including a Mr Valentine and Mr Hayes of which the second presents one of those intriguing little mysteries.

For in 1891 Mr Hayes was selling his beer at number 70 Beech Road which had changed its name from the Travellers Rest to the Trevor Arms not that this lasted for long for when Mr Hayes moved across the road to run a rival beer shop he took the name with him and the old and familiar name of the Travellers Rest reappeared.

And after Mr Hayes and Mr Valentine we enter one of those periods where the building  was pretty much all things to all people.

Mr Riddle ran his upholstery business there from around 1909 onwards and two decades later the widow
Mrs Lothian was offering up prime fish for sale and continued to do into 1936.

Now she had lived at one time or another on Brundrettes, Chequers,  and Wilbraham Road before settling down on Whitelow and I am intrigued by the hint that she may have run two shops, for along with number 70 she is listed at various addresses along Wilbraham Road  during the same period.

She died in 1953 leaving £1074 to her daughters.

Bob Jones circa 1950s

By then our building had for a while become a pet shop run by Mr Jones and it is to his son Bob that I owe the story of the bone man.

Unlike pet shops today Mr Jones offered an extra service which was the humane disposal of loved animals.

Mr Jones would put them in a specially designed box and fed in a lethal dose leaving his son Bob to hand over the remains to the Bone Man who made regular calls.

Now over its long 183 years there will have been plenty of others who made this place their home and I guess their stories will be rediscovered in the course of time.

Pictures, number 70, 2013 and gravestone of Mr and Mrs Nixon, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, in 1958, as the Travellers Rest circa 1901 in 1979 from the collection of Tony Walker, taken R.E. Stanley, m17658, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass   and Bob Jones outside Mr Neil’s shop sometime in the 1950s,opposite number 70 from the collection of Bob Jones.

*The continuing story of one building in Chorlton over three centuries, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-story-of-one-building-in-chorlton_16.html

Gambling on the popularity of a German Christmas card in the December of 1912

Now had I been a shop keeper in the run up to the Christmas of 1912 I might well have bought in to a few sets of Tuck and Sons “A Winter Campaign.”

The series showed a group of snowman in slightly different poses riding wooden horses.

The artist was Wally Fialkowska who was Austrian and the cards were produced in Bavaria and so naturally enough the snowman are wearing German military caps.

They seem to have proved popular with Mr Bernard Butler   who sent one to Madam J. Wetter at 67 Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square on December 24th wishing “you all a happy Xmas and a prosperous New Year.”

And also to “MRR” who on the back of another told Miss Halliday of Bridge Street, Banbridge, Co Down that the canary “was making such a row we had to banish him from the dining room and still he sings.”

Of course two years later and any that were still in stock would quietly have been thrown on the back of the fire, unless our shop keeper was optimistic enough to gamble on the war being “over by Christmas.”









Pictures; from “A WINTER CAMPAIGN” from the series, “A WINTER CAMPAIGN” 1912, marketed by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

Out on Bury Road in 1949 ..............

Now, I like this picture, for lots of different reasons.

It was taken just a few months before I was born, out along Bury Old Road.

One day I will go looking for the firm Cornall of Bury, but for now I am content to study the old-fashioned lorry and the three men staring back at me.

Flat caps, overalls and long coats were the order of the day, over the sleek corporate uniforms supplied to transport workers today.

And the rest as they say is for you to discover, leaving me just to point to the bucket of water at the rear of the lorry on the pavement.

Location; Bury Old Road










Picture; Lorry, Bury Old Road, near Heaton Park, February 21st, 1949, from the collection of Allan Brown

Posting a letter in Woolwich …….. a little bit of fun and a challenge

Now here is a bit of our history, and for those who will always be Woolwich not Greenwich, this will have a special place.

I am looking at one of those bits of crested porcelain, which everyone buys at some point.

 Usually they are an impulse purchase on a wet day at the seaside and after a period on the mantle piece they get consigned to the back of a cupboard, and finally to a charity shop, and on the way acquire at leas one chip.

When I was growing up they  would fascinate me, and later in my teenage years I dismissed them as tacky.

But now, as I enter my seventh decade I am drawn back to them, and in particular those produced during the Great War when the ceramic companies switched to war time themes, turning out china tanks, ambulances, and battleships, all with a coat of arms of a different city, or town.

All of which brings back to the postbox, for which I don’t have a date, but could be anytime from 1900 when the borough was created, to its demise and its merger with Greenwich.

There are still some lingering bits of the old borough around, in the form of the coat of arms, on park gates, proudly announcing our connection to the Royal Arsenal.

And that might well be the challenge for everyone, to find and post them.

But for now I have this one from the collection of David Harrop.

Location; Woolwich






Picture, ceramic crested posted box, Woolwich, date unknown, courtesy of David Harrop

The mob in Didsbury in 1793 …………… opposing progress and the ideas of the day

January 1793 was an uncertain time across the country.  

Didsbury in 1853

The weather was unseemingly cold, the harvest had been poor, and in France the survival of the monarchy was in doubt.

All of which might explain why a crowd gathered to watch as an effigy of that well-known radical, Thomas Paine was burned on the village green in front of the two village pubs.*

And after the event some of the crowd will have settled down in the Old Cock, and the Ring o’Bells which would be rebuilt as the Church Inn and is now the Didsbury Hotel.

Just how many of those swapping stories in the two pubs, were in favour of Tom Paine, and how many had taken against the man who supported both the American and the French Revolutions, we will never know, but our two publicans may well have been pleased at the turn of events which brought in the customers.

The crowd who assembled to see the event may have been driven by a fear of Paine’s ideas or out of sheer curiosity, but they weren’t alone, because in all that orgy of burning, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was “the only town in England in which an effigy of Tom Paine was not burned”, leaving the Manchester Guardian to add that there in Bromsgrove, “Democracy predominates.”**

Thomas Paine, 1792

And that leads me to the only description of a burning that we have for Manchester, which was the one carried out on December 17th 1792,
"The inhabitants at top Deansgate, hanged the effigy of Tom Paine, dressed in a Maroon coloured Coat, Striped Waistcoat, and greasy pair of Breeches, a Barber’s Block with a Wig on supplied the Place of a Head, from his Coat Pockets hung shreds of Paper and on the shoulder a Quantity of Thread, emblematical of his devant Trade, with ‘The Rights of Man’ stitched on his Breast; thus he hung an Hour, amidst the Acclamations of Hunderds of Spectators; he was afterwards dragged through the Streets, and then committed to the flames the Populace singing ‘God Save the King’"***

This event came during a surge of ‘loyalism’ in Manchester where a carefully crafted campaign had been waged against those who had embraced the French Revoultion and argued for a Radical ideas.

In the same month, the home of Thomas Walker on South Parade was attacked by an organizaned mob of Church and King supporters, and Walker was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol.

Writing later of the event he commented,

“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city.  Walker was in no doubt that this was pre-planned.  

Thomas Walker, 1794

Parties were collected in different public houses, and from thence paraded in the streets with a fiddler before them, and carrying board on which was painted with CHURCH and KING in large letters’ 

On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in.  Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds. 

The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms” and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given. 

As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned!  These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.” ****


Location; Didsbury and Manchester

Pictures; Thomas Paine, 1792, Thomas Walker. 1794, Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885, page 120

** Bromsgrove, Manchester Guardian, January 20th, 1793

***Manchester Mercury, January 1, 1793, quoted by O’Gorman Frank, Manchester Loyalism in the 1790s from Return to Peterloo Manchester Region History Review, Volume 23 2012

**** Walker, Thomas, A Review of some of the events of the last five years, London 1794 page 23

The Spanish Civil War, by Chris Hall ..... and the Chorlton Two

Today I got a message from Chris Hall who has written extensively about the Spanish Civil War.

"Hello Andrew, my new book British Volunteers and the Spanish Civil War: ‘The Passionate Cause’, 1936-39 is available now at a reduced price. For more details about the book see below:

Ninety years ago, a Civil War broke out in a then little-known country. For thousands of British, Irish and Commonwealth people, the Spanish Civil War was their main focus for three years.

Over 2,500 “British” (including Irish and Commonwealth) men and women fought in the International Brigades or served in the medical services of the Spanish Republic. Over 500 volunteers were to die in Spain.

Other “British” volunteers served as mercenary pilots and in the revolutionary militias (including George Orwell); some even served on the side of the rebel forces.

At home, thousands participated in ‘Spanish Aid’ activities, raising funds for food ships and medical supplies for Republican Spain. During the Civil War, 4000 Basque refugee children were supported by public donations. Picasso’s Guernica painting toured England to raise funds.

This is the story of ordinary men and women, told in their own words and reflecting the whole gamut of emotions from ecstasy to despair.

Many volunteers would go on to fight in the Second World War, and some became leading figures in post-War Britain. But for many volunteers, the Spanish Civil War was the “Passionate Cause” and the outstanding episode of their lives. This is their story.

The book can be purchased from the publishers or via Amazon”.

To which I can add, it will be published on January 30th, 2026, and costs £29.99, but there is a pre order introductory offer which allows you to buy the book for £23.99 by following the link.*

This is his second book, the first was on The Nurse Who became a Spy Madge Addy's war Against Fascism, and came out in 2022.  Madge Addy lived in Chorlton.  She was a shadowy figure, who worked as a nurse on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War and went on to work for the SOE during the last World War.

All of which leaves me to write that along with Madge Addy, Chris Hall’s new book includes the story of Bernard McKenna who lived at Egerton Road North for many years and was also associated with the Civil War.

*Pre order https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/British-Volunteers-and-the-Spanish-Civil-War-The-Passionate-Cause-1936-39-Hardback/p/57241

**Madge Addy, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Madge%20Addy