The scene that has all but passed out of living memory

Now I know that to suggest the scene has passed out of living memory is an outrageous claim, given that the picture was taken in 1963, which means I have short changed lots of people.

But in many ways almost everything in the picture has vanished or been moved.

And with that tantalizing set of clues, I shall leave it to others to nominate the buildings that have gone, and what has been moved.

Along with what would have met the traveler in 1963 had they followed those railings.

Location, Manchester, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Saturday in the Square ....

Now as our Town Hall continues along that path of restoration and renewal Albert Square with its statues and fountain is steadily being returned to public use.

It’s been going on for a while and on warm sunny days the place is packed.

Even yesterday when the showers were intense if infrequent the Square attracted the tourist, the curious, the passers through and more than a few wedding parties.

To these could be added the few who stopped outside No 10 North which for the those blissfully unaware is my Wikipedia tells me “a unit of the UK government's Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, based in Heron House in Manchester city centre. 

Its name refers to 10 Downing Street, the principal office and London residence of the prime minister of the United Kingdom”.*

But yesterday all that indicated the building’s new role were four Police officers.

So, dodging the rain I busied myself with renewing my acquittance with those statures which I have been photographing for nearly fifty years, and catching up  caught up on the rise of the new developments.

And that today is that.

Location; Albert Square

Pictures; yesterday in the Square, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Number 10 North, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_10_North

So what is the story behind the tram on Well Hall Road, one sunny spring day?

Now there is a fine line between nostalgia and remembering the past.

The first pretty much takes you nowhere and often distorts the past by making it seem somehow better than it was.

On the other hand remembering the past can trigger not only a series of memories but leads to wanting to find out more.

It often starts with that simplest of questions was this really how it was? And then takes you off into serious history which involves talking to others, cross checking their memories against research and beginning to record it for others to read.

And that often leads to community projects where memories and memorabilia come out of the cupboards, are dusted down and shared which not only adds to what we know but brings an area together, allowing the not so young to recreate the past for those too young to know what it had been like.

So here we are with one of those classic old pictures of Well Hall from a book on trams.*

There is no date on the picture, and the caption just says “early days on Well Hall Road [showing] that the local children had plenty of space to play.  All they had to do was get out of the way of the trams which plied the route every ten minutes. The ride from Woolwich to Eltham would have cost two pence.”

All of which draws you in and makes the picture worth investigating.

Judging by the trees and the children’s clothes I think we must be somewhere in the 1920s or 30s and taking into account the shadows it will be early afternoon.

Now it could be a Sunday which would explain the lack of traffic or we really are at a point in time when Well Hall Road was far less busy.

What I also find interesting is that the children by and large are ignoring the photographer.

Earlier in the century and certainly in the last decade of the 19th century the appearance of a man with a camera would have attracted the curious, the vain and those with nothing better to do.

You see them on the old pictures staring back at the camera, intrigued, mystified and just nosey.  But not here, which means we are either dealing with some very sophisticated young people or the world has moved on and street photographers were taken for granted.

And that just leaves me that little personal observation that however fascinating this picture is it just leaves off our house for the photographer has positioned himself just a tad further north, missing out 294 by a couple of blocks.

That said if I have got this right I have to satisfy myself with knowing that the corner house with its ever so fashionable lace curtains was the home of Mr and Mrs Burton in 1925.

The Burton’s were there by 1919 which means that Mr Christopher Dove Burton may have been an Arsenal worker, and just as an aside, I know that they were married in 1920 in Lambeth, and that Beatrice’s maiden name was Briant and it was as Miss Beatrice Briant that she shows up on the electoral roll in 1919 sharing the house with Mr Burton.

Now there is a story to follow up.

Pictures; Well Hall Road, date unknown, from the collection of G.L. Gundy, reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways

*Eltham and Woolwich Tramways, Robert J Harley, Middleton Press, 1996, https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/

Autumn on the Rec ……. and a memory of Mr. Higginbotham from 1894

 

Now, sometimes you just go with two pictures, separated by a century and a bit.

 This is Row Acre being ploughed for possibly the last time by Mr. Higginbotham who farmed the strip of this big field running alongside Cross Road, stretching from Beech Road down to what was the bowling green of the Masonic Hall.

 It is a favourite picture of mine, and one I often repost, and yesterday almost as an echo of Mr. Higginbotham’s ploughing, the Corporation was cutting the grass on the Rec, and in the process left a trail of leaves.

I think it may well have been the last time he ploughed his strip, because within a few years  Row Acre had become the Recreational Ground.

 By which time Row Acre had shrunk from a field which ran from Cross Road down to Acres Road to a parcel of land defined by Cross Road in the east and Wilton Road in the west.

And for the eagled eyed, yes the direction that the two pictures was taken is different.  I took mine from Beech Road, with the Irish Centre in the distance, and Mr. Higgibotham was photographed from somewhere on Cross Road looking towards Beech Road.

 Location; Chorlton

 Pictures; Mr. Higginbotham ploughing Row Acre, 1892, courtesy of Mr. Higginbotham, the Lloyd Collection, and the Rec in 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

 

I have seen the future and it works* …….. shopping in 1961

I like this picture because it offers up a range of shop fronts, from the traditional to the brand new.

And there is no doubting that when Shelia Montgomery and the Electricity Board opted for their bold and striking  fronts they were staking a claim to being modern and at the cutting age of the new Britain.

Back in the late 1950s and early 60s I was too young to appreciate  just how much of a break with tradition they were, and by the time I was in my teens they were so commonplace that I took them for granted.

But in 1961 they stood out as very different from the fashion shop of S. Pickles, which will noy have changed over much since the row of houses with their shops were built.

And walking back along the parade, Rushtons, Sprent and the supermarket had also chosen modernity over tradition.

A full sixty or so years later I rather think all five look dated in comparison to number 111, which modern shop fitters might seek to imitate.

I had thought we were on Princes Road and certainly some of the other pictures in the collection suggest so, but pinning down these shops has so far proved inconclusive.

And happily Michael Wood, came back with this, "Looking at the shop fronts I just got an inkling this was Alexandra Road, and sure enough in the Local Image Collection there is Sheila Montgomery on m30313, next door to Rushtons just before they too had gone for a makeover with the trendy brash new signboard seen in your photo!  

My mum used to occasionally go shopping along here in the 60s as it offered some cheaper alternatives to the Chorlton shops, and I used to pass along here whenever I got the bus into town.  

It was always bustling, with so much dense housing nearby.  There is also m30349 in 1972 both Sheila and Sprent beyond Rushtons have disappeared and the place looks a bit jaded!  Interesting series of photos".

And as ever Michael's correction shows how the blog is always a collaborative project.

To which Tony has added the entry from the Street Directory which I think will date from 1962 and offers up the full range and variety of shopping paradise.

Location; Manchester

 Picture; street directory, 1962, courtesy of Tony Petrie, shop fronts, 1961, 1961-3476.4, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*"I have seen the future, and it works", Lincoln Austin Steffens, 1919, after visiting the Soviet Union

What was lost ….. is found

“We have just found a box of old photos at 515-521 Barlow Moor Road; I haven’t had a good look at them yet .... but I immediately thought you would find them interesting”.*

It’s the stuff that makes for stories, and with some luck and a heap of research the photos may do just that

Or they may lead nowhere but the fun will be in the looking.

515-521 Barlow Moor Road is currently being redeveloped by Armistead Property who have a track record in renovating and restoring old properties and giving them a new lease of life.**

And with all old buildings you can never be sure what secrets have lain undisturbed for generations.

I still remember the story of the  parcel discovered under the floorboards of a house and the momentary excitement of the crew who found it, leading to wild speculation of buried treasure.  

So sure, were the team of builders that something valuable and perhaps historic was contained in the parcel wrapped in old newspaper that they took the find to the museum only to discover that the discovery was nothing more earth shattering than a cheese sandwich left by a carpenter under a newly laid floor in 1910.  

Just why it was left under the floor space will remain a mystery, but I suspect we are dealing with nothing more than one worker’s lunch left in the house, only to be lost when a fellow builder put down the timber floor.

All of which brings me to the Barlow Moor Road collection.

They consist of fourteen pictures found in a battered wooden box, and range from images of smart cars, and equally smart “young things” on holiday to a group of men in uniform and the Grand Hotel Oceanic.  

At first glance there is little detail which could lead to clues upon which to fasten some research, but I will persevere.

I had high hopes of the Grand Hotel Oceanic but I guess there will have been and indeed will be many hotels that claim the name.  The first I came across was in Paris and is one of those typical Parisian builds which are narrow, with a courtyard and stretch to seven floors with those elegant iron balconies. 

Alas it isn’t ours.  Ours is an ugly undistinguished modernist box.

But a further search may lead somewhere.

I can’t even be sure of a date or dates for the fourteen, but we will narrow that down and in time may come up with more.

We shall see.  

Location; 515-521 Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Barlow Moor Road collection, undated

*Peter Armistead

**Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

On the green circa 1898

It’s a picture I have shown before, but is well worth a second look.

The caption suggests a date around 1898, arguing that this “Prince of Wales Horse bus at the Green.  Probably about 1898 before the Corporation took over the Carriage and Tramways Company, but maybe slightly later.”*

The Manchester Carriage and Tramways Company had been formed in 1865 from a merger of the two bus companies serving the city and neighbouring townships.

The larger was owned by the Greenwood Company and brought over 500 horses and 33 omnibuses to the merger, while what had been McEwen’s City Omnibus Company contributed the routes to Bell Vue, Rusholme, Longsight and Didsbury.

And at the end of the 19th was taken over by the City Council.

But what intrigues me is not so much the horse drawn bus but the surrounding buildings.
To the extreme right is the Travellers Rest which had been a beer shop since the 1830s and for most of that century had been run by the Nixon family and next to it the Beech Inn.

To the left is the Horse and Jockey which back then consists just of the middle building.  Beyond the outhouse jutting out towards the green was the tall cottage of Miss Wilton who had died the year before in 1897.

And it was her death which brought our village green back into common usage. From sometime earlier in the century till 1897 this had been the private garden of the Wilton family, surrounded and made secluded by tall hedges, but with her death the land reverted to the Egerton estate who in turn opened it to the public.

And tucked away in the corner was the  little cottage once the home of the Malloy family and later the sweet shop of Miss Gertrude Green.

Location; Chorlton



Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Playing on the Nine Fields, all the way from Well Hall to Kidbrooke

Kidbrook Lane in 1872 with the Nine Fields to the north

Now I know there will be people who know of the existence of the Nine Fields just beyond Well Hall out towards Kidbrooke.

But I think there will not be that many, and certainly now few who will have played on them

Their existence was unknown to me and it was my friend Jean who set me off on a search for them.

She rememberd that “my father told me there were fields stretching from Well Hall Road from the Catholic Church,right across to Kidbrook, before the Kidbrooke estate was built. 

Dad was talking about the 1920s when he was growing up at 47 Lovelace Green.”

And with the power of the internet there almost as soon as I started was a reference to the open land that was called Nine Fields, before the Page Brook estate was built.  Moreover she remembered that they were one vast children’s play area.  At one time small bi-planes were there offering cheap flights.”*

And in turn this led me on to an excellent description of the estates being built in the 1920.**

In the great sweep of world history I grant you that this little discovery is hardly earth shattering, but for people like me who have wandered that bit of Eltham and my sister who lives on Bournbrook Road it remains an interesting insight into what was and what has now gone.

Even more so because when we washed up on Well Hall Road in the 1960s those fields were still within living memory.

Now I am not so sure.

Location, Eltham, London

*Lily Tyrrell (Brown), from Eltham, Mottingham, New Eltham SE9
Royal Borough of Greenwich, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/lilyTyrrell.php
**Municipal Dreams, http://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/page_estate_eltham/

And in turn this led me on to an excellent description of the eststaes being built in the 1920.** http://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/page_estate_eltham/

Picture; detail from the OS for London 1862-72, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Catching the bus ……….. 1967

Despite all my efforts, I have no idea where we are, but as the following images in the collection are from Collyhurst, I am guessing that we are on the north side of the city.

Now, there will be those who question the significance of the image, given the absence of a location and a pretty mundane set of buildings.

But that is the point.

The workshop, and the terraced houses which were once common, have mostly vanished, along with the bus stop.

Neither of the two posters offer up clues.  One is for British Road Services, and the other advertising the film A Man for All Seasons, might just have listed a local picture house, but instead was showing at the New Oxford in the city centre.

So that is it. Although Geoff reminded me "I found this for you last year. Corner of Rochdale Road and Conran Oh and  I like the picture.

Location; unknown

Picture; catching the bus, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

That mystery house on Beech Road ........

Now number 121 Beech Road vanished a long time ago.

Hunts Croft, circa, 1960s

It was one of our more elegant early 19th century properties which was set back from Beech Road, and went sometime in the 1970s.

For a long time after its demolition the land was left an open space, with the occasional suggestion that it could be a car park, a project which came to nought when the Corporation and the local traders couldn’t agree on a funding package.

There will be a few people who remember it, but sadly I am not one of them, which means it had gone before I arrived in 1976 or like so many things I was just not that observant back then.

Either way, there is little to mark its presence, save an entry in the tithe schedule for 1845, the Rate books and official maps.

If I have this right, it was Hunt Croft House and in 1845 was the residence of Thomas White who rented it from the Lloyd Estate.

With a lot of digging it will be possible to track its history through the 19th century till its demolition. I know that in 1969 it was occupied by a Frances. J Casse, and in 1911 by Mr and Mrs Chester, their five children, and a boarder.

Looking into the garden, circa 1970s

The house had nine rooms with a biggish garden at the front, ending in a tallish stone wall which ran along Beech Road.

Back in the mid 19th century it looked at on fields.  From the rear Mr White could look out on a field and orchard, while from his front windows he could gaze across to Row Acre, which stretched up to High Lane.

But by the 20th century the fields had all gone, and on either side of this fine old house were shops.

Beech Road, circa 1970s

And here I must admit my mistake, because for years I had mistaken Croft House for Joel View which stood a little further down the road and had been built in 1859.

Many will remember Joel View as the property owned by J Johnny, which I assumed had been built much later.

I even compounded the mistake by arguing that the stone tablet which carried the  name of Joel View had been salvaged from Mr White’s former home and been added to J. Johnny’s.

Dating the picture

Now, even then I knew that this was pushing it, because our own historian Thomas Ellwood had written that Joel View was one of the new developments in the township at the end of the 1850s.

All of which goes to show that sometimes when it is easy to ignore the obvious and create an elaborate theory which is built on sand and that is really just a lead in to two pictures of Hunt’s Croft sent to me by Roger Shelley who took them sometime in the 1970s and which had lain in his negative box until yesterday.

The two images compliment an earlier one taken by N. Fife for which I don’t have a date for, but maybe from the 1960s.

That said it might be possible to date Roger’s pictures, from the shop which is up for sale.  This had been Mr Westwell’s fruit and greengrocer shop in 1969, but sometime in the next decade became The Village Wholefood Shop.

Hunt's Croft demolished, circa 1979-early 1980s

It was still trading when I took a picture around 1979, showing the shop and the site which had once been Hunts Croft.

So that is it for now, although I am hoping Roger has more pictures.

Location; Chorlton



Pictures; Hunts Croft circa 1960s, courtesy of N Fife, the Lloyd Collection and again circa 1970s from the collection of Roger Shelley, and after it had been demolished circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A Labour candidate ......the Beswick Co-op store ..... and a day in 1967

Now I wonder if Reg, the Labour candidate was successful.

He was the Labour Party candidate in the by-election held on Thursday June 24th, 1965.

I don’t have a surname, but a trawl of the local papers for June 1965 will reveal all.

Given that he was standing for the New Cross Labour Party I suspect he was.

The rest as  they is all in the picture, which is of the Beswick Co-op grocery shop on Aden Street.

The picture dates from 1967, and was one of a collection taken during the decade in advance of the clearance programmes.

Many like me will instantly remember shops like this, with their simple promotional material and range of products which filled our store cupboards, and have pretty much vanished in the face of the supermarkets, convenience stores and online shopping.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Manchester, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 3 the old Brewery 1929

Now I am a great fan of the work of Mr Llwyd Roberts.

He was during the 1930s our artist in residence and during that time produced a heap of line drawings of Eltham and the surrounding area.

Some were reproduced from old photographs while others  were as he saw them at the time.

This is old Brewery which  which dates from 1928 in a building which according to Mr Roberts "originally a brewery, the upper floor of this building was later converted into the Baptist Meeting Room.  The brewery stood at the entrance of Jubilee Cottages, and the building was pulled down in 1928."


Picture; old brewery drawn 1929, Llwyd Roberts

What did the Norman’s Ever do for Us? ….. all day on the wireless today

Well, they were either a marauding band of super gangsters who stole a country, or just another group who crossed the seas to come, settle and make a contribution.

The Battle

Of course, like all the other collections of people from the Neolithic through to 1066 they left their mark in a heap of ways.

And that is what BBC Radio 4 is going to explore today.

It’s already started with segments on the Today Programme and will march on across the day with a few repeats tonight.

The background to all this is the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum and the official opening of the exhibition to the public.

The great, the good and others have already had sneak previews, and yesterday the King and Queen, the French President and our Prime Minister were invited to gaze on that famous tapestry which is in fact an embroidery not a tapestry. 

It came home in July and had a resting period but is now ready to be seen.is coming home.

I remain ambivalent at the event but that was for another blog and others I wrote back in July.*

So for now thank you BBC Radio 4 for what promises to be a memorable day for anyone who likes their history ….. even if it’s the Normans.

The first up will be What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? BBC Radio 4, when “Historians Dr Eleanor Parker, Professor Levi Roach and Alex Burghart MP, writers Kate Mosse, Muriel Zagha and Jade Cuttle trace how the Normans shaped British history and culture”.**

Followed by a heap of wireless articles.

And all available all day and on BBC Catch up by following the link.

Leaving me just to include from BBC Culture 'Chest-thumping machismo': The Bayeux Tapestry' reveals the bloody, bawdy truth about the Middle Ages.****

Postcards or comments to the blog will be welcomed on that question of were the Normans a marauding band of super gangsters who stole a country, or just another group who crossed the seas to come settle, and make a contribution?

Bishop Odo

P.S. and having listened to the first contribution which was What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? , if the remaining day's broadcast are as good, it will indeed be  a day to sit beside the wireless.  

That first programme was thoughtful, interesting and above all I learned something.

I had no idea that a group of English emigress settled in the Crimea at the invitation of the Byzantine Emperor and were there till the arival of the Tarters.

Pictures; bits from the Bayeux Tapestry, Ticket site, British Museum site 

*The Bayeux Tapestry, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Bayeux%20Tapestry

** What did The Normans Ever Do For Us? BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030zjy

***Norman Day, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl7j

**** 'Chest-thumping machismo': The Bayeux Tapestry, BBC Culture, https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20260820-the-medieval-manosphere-of-the-bayeux-tapestry

On Shooters Hill ………………… with We Anchor in Hope

Now I have no memory of the pub We Anchor in Hope.

But then when I roamed over the woods and down Shooter’s Hill and on to Welling, I was still well under the age when “dirty beer” was an attraction.

Still I am very pleased that Brian sent this picture over this morning, because it captures perfectly this stretch of the old road as I remember it.

The picture postcard is undated, but I am guessing we will be sometime in the late 1940s into the following decade and a bit.

That said there will be an expert on London buses who will be able to offer up chapter and verse on the date this one plied its route.

As to the pub, here too I am out of my comfort zone and a trawl of my limited London directories has yet to turn up any information.

Still, I am pleased to say it is still there today and is part of the Green King chain which manages many of the pubs I have researched and written about.

There will be those who are sniffy about such chains, advancing ever the cause of the independent brewery or landlord.

Which just leaves me to thank Brian,  appeal for more information, and point out before someone does that We Anchor in Hope is actually at 320 Bellgrove Road, Welling, DA16 3 RW

And to add this is  a fine shot of the old road climbing west.

And quick as a flash, Brian having read the story of his picture postcard, added a link to a bit more background.

But as ever I shall not lift someone else's research and instead just point you to the link.**


Location Welling

Picture; Shooters Hill, Welling, Kent, date unknown, from the collection of Brian Norbury

* We Anchor in Hope,  https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs/kent/we-anchor-in-hope/

**We Anchor in Hope, Belle Grove Road, East Wickham, Welling, https://pubwiki.co.uk/KentPubs/EastWickham/AnchorinHope.shtml

It happened here in Chorlton and also in Didsbury .............. National Baby Week .... July 1917

Just a century ago a crowd assembled on the Rec opposite our house on Beech Road and listened to Mrs Jane Redford, Mr Peach and Miss Place of the Manchester & Salford Day Nurseries speak in support of National Baby Week.

The week long campaign aimed to rouse “a universal determination to prevent the unnecessary wastage of infant life, [focusing on] all the causes which make for the high rate of infant mortality. 

According to statistics 80,000 babies under a year old die every year in the United Kingdom of which 50,000 might have been saved.”*

Now this is all the more remarkable when you consider that we were by that summer in to year three of the Great War.

A war which had already caused thousands of causalities and although the organisers did not know it was about to deliver even more as the British army launched the Third Battle of Ypres, commonly known as Passchendaele which would in its three months result in the deaths of 244,897 British and Commonwealth  soldiers.

The celebration began with processions through Chorlton and Didsbury both led by “a band and numbers of green and white banners.”

The Didsbury procession which was "followed by a meeting addressed by Miss Margaret Ashton and Mr C T Needham M P and others included Red Cross nurses and munition workers."

By contrast the Chorlton march was made up entirely of  “small children with a few mothers and big sisters to look after the babies and large crowds turned out to watch.”

Sadly no photographs have come to light and I have no idea what Mrs Jane Redford or the others said in the Rec on that Saturday afternoon.

But Mrs Redford was an important figure both in Chorlton and the City and her personal papers may still be available.

She had been active for over 30 years serving on various public bodies including the Board of Henshaw’s Blind Asylum and as a Poor Law Guardian for the Chorlton Union where she had campaigned for the provision of trained nurses for workhouse hospitals.

And in 1910 after winning a municipal election here in Chorlton, she became not only our first woman councillor but also the second woman elected to Manchester City Council.

And she spoke on the Rec opposite our house which really was a bit of history which happened here.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Pictures; the Rec circa 1910 from the Lloyd Collection and Mrs Redford, date unknown courtesy of Lawrence Beedle

*Baby Week Opening of the Campaign in Manchester, Manchester Guardian July 2 1917

Who moved that bus stop? …………. and other challenges to my memory ….Didsbury …. 1967

It started with a conversation with my friend Barbarella about the lost shops of Didsbury, and in particular, the stretch from M&S to the Santander Bank.

I casually mentioned the photo shop close to the bank and then doubt set in as to whether it had been there back in the 1970s, when I waited for a bus, or indeed if it was still there a few decades later.

Now, I know there is one there today, but thought it might have moved from where I remembered it.
 So as you do I checked out the site on street google and while there is a photo shop, there is no bus stop, and there hangs my dilemma, because for years I stood at that bus stop and would often give up on the bus and go in and buy some film.

These were the decades when I still used smelly film, developing them and printing them at home, along with a sideline in colour slides, which with trial and error led me to prefer Agfar film.

But as so often happens the absence of that bus stop led me to question my memory.

And then  Barbarella restored my memory with “Now it’s opposite the Coop and the next one just passed Saints and Scholars”, which was confirmed almost immediately afterwards when I came across another picture from 1967.

There was the bus stop, and more importantly there was the camera shop, complete with Agfa sign.

I did then go looking at the bus routes on the destination board, which even I thought points to me really needing to get out more, but if you want to give the full flavor of Didsbury in the 1960s, you must dig deep.

That said my guide to bus routes for 1969, shows that none of the three services were running by then, which make me wonder if there was a second bus stop with more services and which of the three went into town, and which headed towards Barlow Moor.

Someone will know, and they may also be prompted to share their memories, sparked perhaps by the picture of Wilmslow Road in 1969.

We shall see.

Location; Didsbury

Picture; Wilmslow Road, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Will the real William Frank please step forward ……..

Now for a decade and more I have been hunting for Mr. William Frank who gave his name to two small streets off Great Marlborough Street in Chorlton on Medlock.

Great Marlborough Street, 2019

Once upon a time they consisted of 14 back to back houses but long ago were subsumed in to a finishing works leaving the streets as access points into the building, although at ground level it was still possible to make out the brick arches over the cellar windows and doors.

It was common practice and vanity that builders and property speculators would leave their name for ever in the names of the streets they built.

But for a long time, I couldn’t find William Frank, reposting a story about the area in which they were located.

This was the notorious Little Ireland, which Dr. Kay, Frederick Engels and a heap of other social commentators write about during the first half of the 19th century.

And in response to that story Geoff Ashworth left a comment that “Mr. William Frank, who owned these properties, lived in luxury in Plymouth Grove”, adding that “you also find how much was charged to live in these hovels, and how much they were valued at. Prior to 1860 they also had rented cellars. 1869 rents.”  

Geoff wrote that wonderful book on the rivers of Manchester which is still much sought after.*

Frank Street and William Street, 1844

So armed with this new bit of information and Geoff’s suggestion that I look at the Rate Books, I found Frank Street and William Street. 

In 1836 Mr. Frank owned ten properties, spread out across Frank Street, and William Street.  Those on Frank Street commanded rents of between 2s 5d and 3s 3d.  Now assuming the other properties brought in roughly the same sort of rents he was making well over £60 a year. 

The Rate Books indicate that there were other owners of houses on these streets, and the earliest entry appears to be 1834 which might give us a date for their construction.

As for William Frank his ten properties conferred on him the right to a vote in Parliamentary elections and his name crops up in three Poll Books, from 1836, 1837 and 1840.  

The same books give his address as Baxter Street in Hulme, but also suggest a relative who was a Thomas Frank.  He too had a vote by virtue of owning houses on the same two streets, as well as Spear Street and Oxford Road.  By 1840 Thomas disappears from the Poll Book and Frank appears yo have inherited his properties on Spear Street.

Poll Book for South Lancashire, 1836

Now in my defence a decade ago the Rate Books were not online and a trip to Central Ref to view them on microfilm was a full day’s work. 

So William Frank has come out of the shadows.

But only just.  I have yet to track down Baxter Street, and the one reference I can find lists him in 1851 living as a lodger at 99 Duke Street in Hulme.  He described himself as an “Estate Agent, and a widower who was born in Guisborough in Yorkshire.

Leaving me just to record that it may have been his son Samuel who occupied Plymouth Grove.

Pictures; Little Ireland, 1844, from the OS of Manchester & Salford, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ extract from the Poll Book for South Lancashire, 1836, and Great Marlborough Street, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Ashworth, Geoffrey, The Lost River of Manchester, Willow Publishing, 1987

A shop before its time and a family search abandoned

It was one of those shops which with its quirky concept and interesting objects should have done well on Beech Road.

Take an everyday object past its sell by date and no use to any one and turn it into something different, but I guess it was an idea ahead of the retail trend which now dominates the place.

Now I just assumed that number 19 Beech Road had always had a shop, but not so. Back in 1911 it it was a domestic property the home of Mrs Edith Elizabeth Edwards and her three step sons and Amelia Seel their domestic servant.

I rather think there is a story here which in time with dogged patience I might uncover. Edith was a widow and her husband had died sometime between 1909 and 1911. They were in the house by 1903.

The 1911 census was signed and so I guess filled in by her eldest step son William Pettitt Barrie. And here the mystery begins. The census return declares that Edith had no children.

And yet go back just ten years and there is Edith E Barrie living with her three sons, unmarried sister niece, nephew, a boarder and servant on Stretford Road. She describes herself as a 32 year old widow who was a “Shopkeeper Confectioner Dealer” and her sister as “living on own means.” 

And back another ten and Edith is living with her husband William daughter Elsie and the 36 year old companion Mary A Biggins at 2 Wharf Road, Sale.

It is at this point that you begin to question whether there is something not quite right about crawling over someone’s life and beginning to draw conclusions. And so I won’t.

Perhaps it is enough to draw the more general conclusion that the period was still one where many could die young and be left a widow. Not only did it happen to Edith twice but also to their domestic servant Amelia Seel who at 51 had also lost her husband.

Picture; from the collection of Lawrence Beedle

Back on Pound Place a long time before now

Pound Place was always somewhere I tended to walk past and looking down it now I can’t even remember what stood on the site of the Council Offices.

I have written about  it in the past not least because of its old cottages which once occupied the site and because part of it was the village pound or pinfold which was used to accommodate stray animals and.*

Now a few photographs of Pound Place from the beginning of the 19th century have survived, but today I thought I would feature another of those drawings by Mr Llwyd Roberts who was living in Eltham in the early 1930s.

During his stay here he drew many pictures and some of these appeared in the Kentish Times in 1930 and were reprinted in Old Eltham sixty-six years later.

Picture; Pound Court, Llwyd Roberts, circa 1929-30, from Old Eltham, 1966, courtesy of Margaret Copeland Gain

*Pound Place, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Pound%20Place