One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago ..... walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the fist time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.*

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and I since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The first stretch from Princess Street took in the power station, which had supplied steam to the neighbouring offices and warehouses, through pipes which ran the length of the canal.

Passing these pipes could be a tad unnerving as in places steam would escape from the joints, leaving you wondering if you would suddenly encounter a burst of scalding water. 

The pipes have gone, the overgrown towpath has been cleaned up, and sections of the canal have been transformed, which rather makes the 18 pictures something special.

Although I am the first to admit the quality of some are iffy.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal ….. 24 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

The lost orchards of Chorlton

Today I went looking for the Newbridge pear and the Rose of Sharon apple.

They had been grown here in the 1840’s and had caught the eye of the journalist Alexander Somerville who reported that both pear and apple were “fresh, beautiful and healthy.”

I wrote about them recently and it occurred to me that I should go on an adventure with my old botanist chum and see if we could locate any last vestiges of them.  David reckoned that there were still orchards on the other side of the Mersey not far from Jackson’s Boat, but the weather was against us and never being one for getting wet the quest has been postponed.

But in the meantime I set out for find the ones that Alexander Somerville described.  Now these belonged to the farmer James Higginbotham and they took in the land either side of what is now Crossland Road up as far as Higson Avenue.

But there were others dotted across the township.  Now the productive life of an apple tree is about 30-40 years although some can go for 80 to a 100 years,* so with this in mind I doubt that any we find today will date from 1847, but you never know.

So I travel in hope, but even if we don’t find any Newbridge pears or Rose of Sharon apples what fascinates me is that they confirm the possibility that were making cider and perry here in the township.  Of course most of our apples were sent to the Manchester markets but some will have been retained for home use.  And because the Newbridge pear is a perry pear it follows that either we were making perry or we were sending it on to be turned into perry.

All of which also means there is now the hunt for an old press, and if that could be found I would really be very pleased.

*And there are examples which were planted at the beginning of the 19th century

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; Higson’s orchard from a detail of the OS map of Lancashire, 1841, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking the Woolwich markets …….. 1914

Now I don’t usually just lift someone else’s work directly off the page, but today I am breaking that rule.

And I am breaking it because the description of the Woolwich markets back in 1914, from The Woolwich Story is so good it deserves to appear just as E.F.E. Jefferson presented it.

The book is a wonderful account of all things Woolwich, while chapter XV, vividly recreates a walk through the market on the eve of the Great War.

The account runs across 19 pages and is fascinating, both because of its description of the market but also as an insight into how we lived just over a century and a bit ago.

Location; Woolwich in 1914

Pictures; Woolwich market in the early, 20th century, from Woolwich Through Time is at Woolwich, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 pages 156-7

Half a century of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre ….. the exhibition

Yesterday I dropped into the major new exhibition celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

It’s a sobering thought that I have pretty much lived almost all those 50 years.

It’s a place I have proudly shown off to family and friends, as well as dining in its restaurants and of course watched a heap of performances ranging from Shakespeare to musicals and on one wonderful occasion saw our Josh perform in a youth production.

And over the years has been the backdrop to meet ups and quite solitary moments so I had to slide along and enjoy this new exhibition which is entitled “Mythic Reinvention celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Responding to the unique architecture of our Victorian Great Hall, the exhibition transforms the art of storytelling into an immersive space where the mythic and modern collide.

 Curated from our extensive costume archive that is home to over 25,000 individual pieces, past productions will echo into the present and reveal how stories continue to reflect societal change and deeper human truths through a new lens.

Explore up close the craft of designing and making theatre costumes, where threads of character and stories connect across five decades, through different genres and generations. 

Step inside the inner workings of the theatre’s costume department and hear from the artists who created some of the Exchange’s most iconic productions. Each costume reveals a story of imagination, skill and collaboration, offering a rare glimpse into the artistry that has shaped the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Part exhibition, part installation, Mythic Reinvention invites audiences to immerse themselves in the evolving mythology of storytelling, exploring how costume reimagines stories across time and how those stories continue to define, reflect and shape who we are today.

Mythic Reinvention: An exhibition celebrating 50 Years of Costume and Craft is open from 16 September until 15 November 2026”.

But be careful as “opening hours will vary throughout the exhibition due to other performances and events taking place in the theatre".

I turned up just a little before the doors opened at midday, but the bonus was a conversation with two people from north Manchester also waiting to go in and that is always a bonus.

Location; Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange, St Ann’s Square

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026

*Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event/mythic-reinvention-exhibition/

When your life comes packaged in just eight pages…….

 It’s a silly title really but it sprang to mind after seeing Michael Kay’s post featuring the brochure for Manchester Polytechnic.

It is dated 1970 and must have been produced just a few months after I washed up in the city to do an Arts degree at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.*

I had arrived in the September of the previous year, with a suitcase, an address for a bed sit and no idea what was ahead of me.

Indeed, as a lad from southeast London Manchester was only the second city I had ever experienced.

And pretty much soon after I arrived, I embraced the place spending the hours when I should have been in the library wandering the city centre, which gave me a fascination for the buildings, and the history. 

Along the way I made some lasting friendships and many more which have dropped away over the years.

As for the degree, well I learned a few things, but like others not as much as I had done during A levels.

But the three years also introduced me to the other two faculties that made up the Poly, and while I did visit John Dalton the science place, it was the Art College, All Saints and the old Till Kennedy Building which were a second home.

The three faculties of Art, Commerce and Science had been separate educational institutions and mine betrayed its origin with the title of Commerce which offered many vocational courses, making it an odd mix of students.

Till Kennedy, Student's Union, 2015

Over the years I have written about the famous Saturday nights which hosted a pile of groups which straddled the late 60s and early 70s, along with equally memorable times at the Students Union which to many of us will always just be the Till Kennedy Building.*

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

The Art College, 2024

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”***

The College of Knowledge, 1969

Over the years I have explored the history not only of the College of Commerce but also the Art College with its links to many of the artist I admire, as well as Mr. Dalton.

Much of which came flooding back with the brochure with its images of the city and its optimistic take on Manchester in the 1970s.

And what is remarkable is that a full fifty-six years after it was published many of the buildings and places it featured are still there.

Sadly, my own College was found wanting and now is at the centre of a residential complex, while On the Eight Day has moved slightly further up Oxford Road and now inhabits a new build, while Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station was transformed by a make over at the start of this century.

Still the eight pages make for an interesting read, but not a nostalgic one, after all I never left the city and so took the changes in my stride.

That said I do remember that two years after the Poly came into existence, its entire collection of student accommodation comprised six flats for six married couples in the former Fireman’s block of the Mill Street Police Station off Grey Mare Lane.

We had married in the December of 1972 and moved in a few months later as one of the first six couples.  

For all of us living in east Manchester was a tad different from the south of the city but perfectly fitted with how we saw ourselves.

Leaving me just to thank for posting and giving me permission to use the pictures.

Location; Manchester in 1970

Pictures; Manchester Poly brochure, courtesy of Michael Kay, The College of Commerce, 1969, Butterworth Street, Luft M 1991, m55776, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, The Art College, 2024, and the former College of Commerce, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the former Till Kennedy Building, 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson

The College of knowledge in 2023

*The College of Commerce.

The entire student accomodation in 1972

**Manchester Polytechnic, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Manchester%20Polytechnic

****Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

The Kickety Brook, Stretford, once a vital part of our flood defences

I first walked the Kickety Brook with my old botanist friend, David Bishop.

It doesn’t look much but it was vital in its day for protecting the Duke’s Canal at Stretford.

The Canal dates from the 1760s and was cut to bring coal into the heart of the city and also was used by our farmers and market gardeners to ship their produce into the Manchester markets.

But the canal was close to the Mersey which could flood with little warning. In July 1828 flood water transported hay ricks from the farm behind Barlow Hall down to Stretford only later to take them back, while later floods proved to be even more destructive with one destroying the bridge across Chorlton Brook.

It was, wrote Thomas Ellwood the local historian
“no uncommon thing to see the great level of green fields completely covered with water presenting the appearance of a large lake , several miles in circuit,” and he recorded six major floods between  December 1880 and October  1881

By then the stone weir had been in place for nearly a century.  It had been built after a heavy flood in August 1799 had broken the banks where Chorlton Brook joined the Mersey.  This had led to fears that the Bridgewater Aqueduct across the flood plain could be damaged in a subsequent flood.

The weir was designed to divert flood water from the Mersey down channels harmlessly out to Stretford and the Kicketty Brook.  Not that it always worked.  Soon after it had been built flood water swept it away and during the nineteenth century neither the weir nor the river banks prevented the Mersey bursting out across the plain.

This happened in 1840 and in the following year it was rebuilt by the engineer William Cubitt. After litigation the cost of repair was borne by the Bridgewater Trust who paid out £1,500, the Turnpike Commissioners £500, Thomas de Trafford £1,000 and Wilbraham Egerton £1,000.

Today, standing beside the weir you get little sense of the force of the river in full flood. In the winter there can be a pool of water at its base stretching out across the plain but on many occasion in the past on warm summer’s days even this bit of land can be bone dry.

And likewise the Kickety Brook seems just an overgrown and quite forgotten bit of water. The last time the weir took an overflow of flood water was 1915 when these two pictures were taken.

Pictures; Higgibotham's field in flood, 1946, from a painting by J Montgomery, 1963, m80092, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and 1915 pictures from the Lloyd collection

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.10 the ferry or the tunnel?

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the late ‘70’s 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.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Amberleigh ... 1953-1997 ........ that prep school on Wilbraham Road

Sometimes you encounter a story which is well beyond your own experiences.

The Oaks, Wilbraham Road, 1929

And so today I plunge into that world of private education and in particular the schools and academies which flourished here in Chorlton in the first half of the last century.

It is something I was never privy to.  I went from one state school to another, effortlessly moving from Edmund Waller Junior school to Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern and Crown Woods Comprehensive to Manchester College of Commerce.  And then after a post grad year at Didsbury Training College, I spent 35 years teaching in inner city schools.

So, mine was a paid education but one funded by local authorities from the public purse.

Mr. Dadley's Grammar School, High Lane, circa 1911

But today I am looking at the private schools of Chorlton which flourished in the years before the Great War continued into the brave new world after 1945 and lasted into the 21st century.

I have written about them in the past, from the Convent school on High Lane to Mr Dadley, whose Grammar School specialized in training for “Law, Medical Accounts, Prelims, University, and Civil Services Exams”.

What they had in common was that they attracted the “middling people” who had moved into Chorlton during the housing boom which had begun in the 1880s and who could afford to enrol their children in these private educational establishments.

In 1911 there were seven in Chorlton, which slowly fell to four in 1929, and three by 1961. **

Of the last three it is Amberleigh Preparatory School at 398 Wilbraham Road which caught my attention today.  It closed in February 1997 and was listed as an “Independent Selective Mixed School for 4-11’s.***

Amberleigh Preparatory School, Wilbraham Road, 1960

The first reference to it is in 1953 in a street directory and in a series of adverts in the Manchester Guardian offering “a course of Evening Classes for children between the ages of 11 and 13 who will be eligible to sit for the local grammar and municipal scholarships in February 1954.  

The course will cover a period of 23 weeks, consisting of 46 lessons each of two hours duration”.****

To this can be added three articles from 1964 and 65, recording the school’s participation in art competitions run by the Manchester Guardian. Under the heading “Enterprise of imagination” the newspaper described the work exhibited by students from Amberleigh in connection with “the Single-handed Transatlantic Race”, and a family’s sailing adventure to Easter Island. ****

The first competition saw five hundred schools enter and the second six hundred, with Amberleigh winning through on both occasions and featuring in the coverage.

Sadly, although some of the students are mentioned by name, no teacher who quite clearly was something of an inspiration is lost to us.

Advert for Amberleigh, 1953

At present that is pretty much it, although there is a Facebook presence from students who share their memories starting in 1955***** and rolling through into the 80s, and a homemade film of a school day outing from the 1970s.******

Just what was taught, the organization of the school day and other stories will I guess come to light as people come forth with their contributions.

Well I hope so.

It now seems quite remote and yet it is well to remember that the Convent school on High Lane lasted into the 1990s and was supersede by the Islamic School for Girls which only vacated the site recently.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Picture; Mr. Dadley’s Grammar School, circa 1911, ,The Oaks College, advert from the St Clements Parish Bazaar Magazine 1928 kindly supplied by Ida Bradshaw, Amberleigh Preparatory School, 1961 m18331,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Mr. Dadley’s Grammar School, circa 1911, from the Lloyd Collection

*Carlton House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Carlton%20House

&

Denbigh Villas ...... the name that was lost and is found, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/08/denbigh-villas-name-that-was-lost-and.html

**1911 Balgarie, Miss Edith, 19 Whitelow Road, Barker, Miss Agnes, 8 Yerk Road, Booth Miss Ann Shepley, 41 Holland [Zetland] Road, Brotherton, Misses Adelaide & Eva, 23 Manchester Road, Dadley Mr. C 57-59 High Lane, 55 High Lane, Convent High School for Girls, 55 High Lane, Timaeus, Mis Kathleen, 21 York Road

1961 Amberleigh Preparatory School, Mis F. Ashcroft, 398 Wilbraham Road, The Oaks College, Miss A Haigh, 643 Wilbraham Road

***Advert, Manchester Guardian, June 12th, 1953

****Get Information about a school Gov UK, https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/105586

***** Transatlantic Adventure, Guardian, September 17th, 1964 & Easter Island Adventure, Guardian September 22nd 1965

*****Facebook,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/wegrewupinmanchester/posts/3490982651176452/

******School Day out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YcUreTixHo

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 

Travelling on LCC tram number 1622 with memories of the Old Kent Road and Well Hall

Now I missed travelling on a tram by just a matter of years, but had I been born a little earlier I might well have been on this one that rattled its way up from the Old Kent Road to Westminster.

And just possibly also taken the 44 and 46 which connected Eltham with Woolwich.

According to family legend I was actually there at New Cross when the last London tram took its last journey in the summer of 1952 but until yesterday I never thought I would come close to one.

Now I know I could visit the London Transport Museum where there is a fine 1910 tram from West Ham Tramways Corporation, but my number 40 which was the one my dad would have used is even closer to home.

It is in the collection of CRICH TRAMWAY VILLAGE just south of Matlock which is no distance for me but I accept is a long way from south east London.

But your loss is our gain and I have planned my visit.

In the meantime I have settled for a picture of LCC number 1622 which plied route 40 from New Cross.

It comes from my old friend Andy Robertson who has been recording the changes to the twin cities of Manchester and Salford and decided to take an afternoon off and visit the museum.

And there is plenty else to see from a Blackpool tram complete with its destination board announcing a Tour of the Illuminations to the Red Lion Hotel which was once in Stoke on Trent and facing demolition was rescued by the museum rebuilt and happily once again serves up a pint.

In his collection of pictures from the day is the sign on a Leeds tram informing passengers that “Spitting is Forbidden” which made sense in an age before antibiotics and the dangers from a range of infectious diseases was all too common.

It is I think Andy's favourite  while for me it will always be the number 40

Which just leaves me to mention Trams in Eltham by John Kennett** and The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins which includes a chapter on that last tram at New Cross.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/

** Trams in Eltham  by John Kennett, Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

*** The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/019.pdf

The not so dusty records of Woolwich ……..

Now for many years those of my friends who share my love of Eltham, Woolwich and Plumstead have sung the praises of the two volumes of “Records of  the Woolwich District”. *

 Down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013

And equally for years I have made a note to buy the two books, but something always came up and I got side-tracked.

But not now, because last month I took the plunge, ordered both and have not regretted it since.

The title may seem dull and off putting, but there is everything here from the Roman Road over Shooters Hill, the Norman invaders who stole Charlton, and more than a bit on the ancient buildings of Eltham, along with a snapshot of the place in 1881.

Added to which there is heaps about Woolwich, so I reckon there is a bit for everyone.

The Book, 2015

And a careful read will reveal how historians like Eltham’s own Mr. Gregory have plundered the records for stories, and I no doubt will join them.

The records were compiled by W.T. Vincent and published in 1890 and owed their existence to years of sifting through the records at several museums.

Plaisted's Wine House, 2013

Of which the highlight was the discovery of a sealed package with the title of “Dockyards of England-Southeast District” which had come out of the collection of George III, including an exact plan of Woolwich in 1748, a plan of “the Foundry from 1715”, plans of the dockyard from 1774 and a plan “of the 2-gun batteries and bomb-battery in 1737”.

And the rest as they are a riveting section in volume one revealing so much about the history of Woolwich with snippets about the other parts of the old borough peppered through volume two to make this a fascinating read, which can be dipped into or be used as the basis for more research.

Leaving me to ponder just where I will start, while reflecting on how popular such histories were at the the end of the 19th century.

My bookshelves are full of books written during the 1880s into the early decades of the the next century.

Some are slightly turgid, but most are extremely interesting, particularly those written about areas which were just decades earlier small rural communities.

Woolwich Free Ferry, 1905

And I suspect that is why they were written. 

Two of my favourite historians admit that they were motivated by a desire to record a way of life which was fast disappearing.

Both included descriptions by men and women who had been born in the early part of the 19th century who in turn drew on memories of conversations with parents and grandparents which went back to the years just after George III lost the American colonies, and in some cases even further back.

I am not sure that Mr. Vincent does this, but his meticulous use of old records make his book one to read.

Location; the old Borough of Woolwich

Pictures, down an alley from Woolwich High Street, 2013, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick, cover of volume 11, 2015 and the Woolwich Free Ferry, Tuck & Sons, 1905, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

*“Records of the Woolwich District”,  W.T .Vincent, 1890, and republished 2015 by FamLoc Books

When only the pubs were left ........

It is pretty true that during many of the urban redevelopment schemes of the 1960s and 70s, it was the pubs which remained long after the homes of their customers had been bulldozed down

Now I have been a great fan of Roger Shelley’s photographs for over a decade, ever since he shared a collection of pictures he took of a group of young lads playing in the near ruin of Hough End Hall nearly 60 years ago.

The attention to detail and his ability to capture the moment are skills I wish I had.

And so, I was very pleased when he posted another group of images he took during the house clearances in Hulme and Moss Side.

The pictures are a mix of street scenes, and the people he encountered, including kids at play, men and women at work and the ever present piles of rubble as the grand plan advanced and centuries old houses disappeared under the impact of the wrecking ball.

Like the work of Shirley Baker* his pictures don’t dwell on sentimentality and don’t make judgments of the wholesale clearances of communities.

They just record what he saw.

And with his permission I will be working my way through the portfolio, fastening on images which tell their own stories.

Location; Hulme and Moss Side in the 1960s and 70s

Pictures; from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/

*Baker, Shirley, Without a Trace, Manchester and Salford in the 1960s, 2018

Voices from Chorlton ……… 179 years ago

In the summer of 1847 Alexander Somerville had come looking for potato blight, that disease which had ravaged the crops of Ireland and had been reported just a little further south in Derbyshire and what he found were a group of farmers and labourers all too happy to show him we were blight free.  

Mr Higginbotham ploughing Row Acre, 1893

Here were many of the people I had come to know, including James Higginbotham, farmer on the green, Lydia Brown whose farm was just a little to the east of the Bowling Green Hotel and old Samuel Nixon, market gardener and landlord of the Greyhound just over the river.

It is a remarkable piece because Somerville reported and in places quoted what they said.  Nothing quite fits you for hearing their voices, talking of farming issues, joking about what newspapers publish and complaining about their landlords.  These are the authentic voices of 179 years ago.

Nor is that quite it.  For when Somerville and Higginbotham inspect the potato field I know where it was. 

Row Acre, Chorlton Row, and the village 1854

It is the strip of land that ran from the Row along what is now the Rec beside Cross Road, and when they stood admiring the Rose of Sharon apple trees and the Newbridge pears we are just behind the Trevor Arms on what is now Beech Road.

It doesn’t take much imagination to recreate that orchard scene with the smell of William Davis’s smithy hard by and perhaps even the noise of the children in the nearby National school on the Green.

Likewise I am pretty sure I can locate the large bank of earth with ash trees which Lydia Brown was so unhappy about and fully understand why she might contemptuously refer to George Lloyd the landlord as Squire Lloyd because of his refusal to allow her to cut the trees back.

Above all it is that calm and steady confidence of the farmer that shines through.

When Mr Somerville came to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1847

Along with Higginbotham’s pleasure that the weather has won out there is the certainty of a life time of experience that allows George Whitelegg to assert that he didn’t believe in blight. Whitelegg ran the Bowling Green Hotel farmed 36 acres and later would go into speculative building.

Mr Higginbotham was 'only afraid that the blight might come.  When it does come it will be time enough to raise the alarm'.

Mr Whitelegg, of Chorlton, told me that 'he was a potato grower, had heard of the blight, had looked for it, could not find it, and did not believe in it'.

Crossing the green meadows I was told at Brook Farm to go down a path under some trees and examine a field; 'for' said the workman who bad me to go, 'it is best for those who want to find the potato disease to look for it themselves and find their own disappointment.'

I told him that I did not want to find it; that I should be well satisfied to find that the blight was not there, to which he replied briefly, 'then, sir you get satisfaction.  The best grown potatoes in this part of the country are in that field, and never since the day that you and were born did the plants look better.'

Looking out towards the green from Mr Higginbotham's farmyard, circa 1880

I found them after close examination to be all that he described them. 

A large bank of earth with ash trees growing upon it – trees which are not only objectionable as all other kinds are in and around cultivated fields but positively poisonous to other vegetation, ran through the ground causing much waste of land, waste of fertility, and doing no good whatever.

Squire Lloyd is the landlord.  Mrs Brown a widow is the tenant.  She keeps the farm in excellent order so far as the landlord’s restrictions will allow.  But neither herself nor her workmen must 'crop or lop top' a single branch from the deleterious ash trees.

Again I was in the green meadows, where the rain that had newly fallen, and the fresh wind that was blowing, and the luxuriant herbage on every side, and the wild flowers prodigal of bloom, all proclaimed that the insurgents now in rebellion against bountiful Providence must soon be defeated and humiliated.

The bridge Mr Somerville crossed to visit the Greyhound, 1865

At Jackson’s Boat where I crossed the Mersey into Cheshire by the bridge which has superseded the boat, the bridge keeper, Samuel Nixon also publican of the Greyhound,  said 'I have been a farmer all my days and never saw anything that can grow out of land look better.  It is only int paper; they must have something to say in paper.'**

Now that is what I call history.

Location; Chorlton


Pictures;  Ploughing Row Acre before it became the Recreation Ground, 1896  Mr Higginbotham's farmyard, circa 1880s, from the collection of William Higginbotham, detail from the 1854 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and the old bridge across the Mersey, circa 1865

*Somerville, Alexander, A Pilgrimage in Search of the Potato Blight, Manchester Examiner, June 19th, 1847

**Chorlton Row, is now Beech Road

**The Greyhound is now Jackson's Boat

More history from Chorlton Book Festival with Brian Groom .... tomorrow

Part of the Chorlton Book Festival 2026 collection

Chorlton Library

Manchester, Greater Manchester

Thursday, September 24   

6 PM - 7 PM

Overview

"Chorlton Book Festival presents

We are so excited to welcome the hugely popular historian Brian Groom back to Chorlton Book Festival!

Acclaimed author and journalist Brian Groom reveals the colourful and often-contested history of the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and others who have occupied these islands, along with their culture, languages and passions.

Packed with surprise and insight, These Isles explores the role of religion, the British Empire, international diasporas and internal migration, gender relations and war in a nuanced and entertaining narrative.

With forays into popular culture, sport, music, language, literature and art, These Isles stretches from 800,000-year-old footprints on a Norfolk beach to the changing fortunes of the early twenty-first century. It offers a uniquely rich and kaleidoscopic vision of the shared stories of people across Britain and Ireland – past and present". 

Chorlton Book Festival, September 17th to September 26th

  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2026-4861494/