The picture …. the municipal venture ….. and half a mystery solved

Here is a picture I keep coming back to.

At the Electricity showrooms, undated

It is a popular one which keeps cropping up on social media and was recently reposted by my Facebook chum, Christopher Roman.

Alas I have never been able to track a date or a source for the image, but the design of the building and the fashions on display would suggest the 1930s.

This was still the height of municipal socialism which saw local authorities continue to advance their responsibilities in a range of activities.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the absence of much from central government it was local politicians who were making their towns and cities better places to live.  As Sidney Webb said the “municipalities have done most to socialize our industrial life.” *

And so a resident of Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow could benefit from municipal supplies of water, gas and electricity, travel on municipally owned trams and buses walk through a municipally maintained park while knowing his children were being educated in municipally run schools.

Electricity Supply Box, 1915

“Glasgow builds and maintains seven public ‘common lodging houses’; Liverpool provides science lectures; Manchester builds and stocks an art gallery; Birmingham runs schools of design; Leeds creates extensive cattle markets; and Bradford supplies water below cost price. 

There are nearly one hundred free libraries and reading rooms. The minor services now performed by public bodies are innumerable.”*

And chief amongst those was the growing push to provide affordable gas and electrical fires, cookers and a range or household appliances which were promoted through local authority showrooms and supported by municipally run classes on how to cook with gas and electricity.

But the "City of Leicester Electricity Service" remained elusive ….. until last night when Tina turned up the story in a matter of minutes eclipsing my long practised historical skills.

It was all there in an article entitled City Hall, from the Story of Leicester.**

I have no intention of lifting other people’s research and so instead if you want to know the history of the service just follow the link.

Electricity Joan? 1938

Not that I am any closer to finding the date or the source, but I think it will be sometime after 1935 when the newly opened "Municipal Offices housed the Leicester Corporation Electricity Department (later the East Midland Electricity Board) and were specially furnished with a model kitchen for 'housewives who are interested in the modern uses of electricity in the home'. 

Exhibition Model Of All-Electric Kitchen, 1935

A special theatre also presented weekly cookery demonstrations and a Service Centre displayed, sold and hired out electrical appliances".**

Added to which I guess the picture comes from promotional material issued by the City Council.

Shopping for the new, date unknown

Now that is almost the end of the story but not quite, because after an appeal on the Leicester Old and New site and before Tina’s discovery a heap of people suggested the location for the offices as Charles Street.***

And that placed it almost opposite the air b&b we stayed at in January on one of our visits to see our Josh and Polly.

So as they say ….. it really is a very small world and armed with my newly acquired knowledge I will go and stand outside City Hall next time we are in Leicester.

Pictures; City of Leicester Electricity Service, source, and date unknown Manchester Corporation Electricity Works Supply box, circa 1915, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, advert from Manchester Electric Supply and picture of an all-electric kitchen 1935, Manchester Corporation

*Webb, Sidney, from Historic, Fabian Essays in Socialism 1889

**City Hall, Story of Leicester, https://www.storyofleicester.info/civic-affairs/city-hall/

***Leciester Old and New, https://www.facebook.com/groups/483822492579736/?multi_permalinks=855570792071569&notif_id=1691096569147245&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif

A lost Chorlton bottle ….. the Beech Road offi ……… and a trip back to a Dickensian Manchester

It started with the find of a broken bottle in a garden on Wilton Road.

The lost and found bottle, 2023

My friend Declan wrote “Hi Andrew. Neighbours have builders in digging trenches for an extension. They unearthed an old glass bottle, possibly discarded when the houses were being built in the 1890’s?”

The shop on Beech Road, 1900s

It carries the name Mason and Burrows.

Now, I can date the house to between 1894 and 1903 when the property was occupied by a William Simpson.

And it may just be possible that he or a subsequent resident bought the bottle from a branch of Mason and Burrows “grocers & wine & spirit Merchants”.*

In 1895 they had shops on Moss Lane, Great Western Street and  Moss Lane East, and by 1911 had expanded further south to Stockport Road, 23 Wilbraham Road and 46 Beech Road.

The romantic un historian bit of me would like the bottle to have come from the Beech Road offi, which continued selling beer, wine, and tobacco into the 2000s before opening as "Espicerie Ludo, Wine Merchant and Fine Groceries”.

And as you do, I went looking for them.  So far, I have tracked them back to 1886 to Sun Entry, which was a small street off Cock Pit Hill and Bull’s Head Yard which was part of a warren of narrow streets and closed courts bounded by Corporation Street, Market Place and Market Street.

Sun Entry, 1886

They had a Dickensian feel, and non-more so that Sun Entry which snaked down from Cock Pitt Hill towards Market Street becoming progressively narrower till it ended as an enclosed passageway.

The area was already in existence by 1793 and elements show up on Tinker’s map a full 21 years earlier.

There will be a few people who remember the area before its demolition in the late 1960s which was replaced by that modernistic complex which included the Marks and Spencer store with its wavey canopy.

I wish I had known that older Manchester and walked the alleys’ and entrances.

In the 1880s Mason and Burrows occupied a large premises which fronted both Bulls’s Head Yard and Sun Entry and may have shared the “arched beer cellars” which extended down to the small and equally narrow Hopewood Avenue.

Sun Entry from Cock Pitt Hill, 1910

There is more but I suspect the historic record is not up to revealing the secret of the number on the base of the bottle which was 1302. It may be a reference to a batch or to one of the products they sold.

Bottle bottom with a number, 2023

But unless we can have access to one of their catalogues, I fear that number 1302 will remain in the shadows.

Still, I like the way that on a sunny day in Chorlton the story took us back into the late 18th century in one of those lost and now largely forgotten bits of the city.

Location; Wilton Road, Sun Entry and Bulls Head Yard

Pictures; the lost Mason and Burrows bottle 2023, Mason Burrrows shop, Beech Road circa 1900s Sun Entry, 1886, from Goad’s Fire Insurance Maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Sun Entry, from Cock Pit Hill, City Engineers, 1902,and in 1944, City Planners 05914, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Sun Entry narrows towards, Market Street, 1944

* Mason and Burrows, Slater’s Manchester & Salford Directory, 1895

Lost Woolwich .......... no 4 a football team

Now of all the places I knew in my youth I have to say Woolwich is one of those that has  undergone some of the most radical change.

So much so that big chunks of it I have difficulty recognising.

The Arsenal, Powis Street and even the old Pie and Mash shop were as familiar to me as they were to generations of people who grew up in Woolwich and are now just distant memories.

So with that in mind I have returned to images of a time before now.

And so here for those in my family like Geoff who follows Charlton, the odd couple who watch Millwall and Colin and Lee who travel over the river is that local football team from 1905.

Picture; from Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, Amberley 2014

That amazing Mr Banks ....... his pictures and other practitioners of his trade

Now I remain fascinated by what can turn up in an old cupboard, under the floor boards or in this case the family picture album.

And for what follows I have my old friend Oliver Bailey to thank, who having read the story on the photographer, Robert Banks, sent up a selection of the trade cards which accompanied some of the family pictures.

Oliver told me that "glancing through your blog on I saw the name Banks, which rang a bell as he was one of many that took photos of different branches of the family and I attach copies of mountings he used plus a list of all the practitioners of the art that the family used".

All of which was a find indeed.

Mr Banks was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

From there he set up in Manchester, was employed to take family photographs, and went out on to the streets of the city to record what he saw.

He was commissioned by the Corporation in 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

The mountings on the back of Oliver’s family photographs record the growing success of Mr Banks who by degree began opening studios across the city and beyond including Blackpool.

Along with these cards, Oliver provided a list of 35 other photographers, many of whom were working outside Manchester and include places ranging from Todmorden, Southport, Rochdale, Pendleton, Halifax and Burnley.

At which point I will have to go back to Oliver and enquire as to how so many far flung photographers were snapping the family.  I suppose the explanation for some like Southport, Hollingworth Lakes, and Douglas in the Isle of Man will be holiday opportunities, But Sierra Leone will throw up a story.

The list is a treasure trove, because it offers the chance to pursue the careers of each of these picture takers.
I know the Manchester ones will be there in the local directories which I have but the ‘out of town’ ones are all new to me and over time I will pursue them.

Just leaving me to thank Oliver, whose family farmed in Chorlton from the 1760s.

Location; everywhere






Pictures, trade cards from Robert Banks, late 19th, early 20th centuries, from the collection of Oliver Bailey

Heaps of cars … missing trains ….. and Central Railway Station in colour

I missed the end of Central Railway Station by just a couple of months, and it was not for another decade that I stumbled across the place.

By then it had become a car park which I suppose was a bit of an insult although I guess most of those who parked up there thought it was a convenient use for that former grand terminus.

I can still remember marvelling at how impressive it still was with that giant wall of glass where the platforms almost ended.

Back then I mostly did black and white pictures and rarely did colour which is why most of my photographs of Central Railway Station are monochrome.

But occasionally I did venture into colour slides and recently began converting them into digital images.

Alas many suffered from over four decades in our cellar and the quality of them is iffy.

But there is enough to bring back to life that time in 1979 when armed with two cameras I wandered along the platforms, looking down on the parked cars and the slowly deteriorating remnants of station offices and other railway furniture.

Now there are plenty of pictures of Central after the trains left, but these are mine.

I have to confess that those I took in black and white are better, but here are some of the lost colour ones.

But  then as you do I decided to throw in some of the others and that really is it.

Location; Manchester Central Railway Station

Pictures; after the trains left, Manchester Central, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Twilight Sleep Home for painless child birth, a chance conversation and a story revealed

Now it is another one of those stories I thought had come to an end, but the Twilight Sleep Home at Westonby on Edge Lane has popped up again.*

Westonby is a big Edwardian pile on the edge of Chorlton which was built in 1903 and was grand enough to have been “cellared throughout contains three well-lighted entertaining rooms; billiard-room spacious hall, five bedrooms, box room, bathroom, and separate w.c, lavatory and w.c on ground floor, excellent kitchen, usual conveniences and large garden........ contains 3,074 square yards or thereabouts and has a frontage of about 200 feet on Edge Lane.”**

All of which made it an attractive place to live, but sometime around 1922 it had become the Old Trafford Twilight Sleep Home.  Not I grant you the zippiest of names and one with feint comic overtones  which opened a new field or research.  For on the same page of classified adverts was another Twilight Sleep Home on Upper Chorlton Road.

It is an odd name and takes you back to one of those fashionable medical practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and centred on the attempt to find a painless way for giving birth.

The standard approach had been to administer chloroform but in Germany experiements had been undertaken to see if women could give birth while asleep.  The mother was given a mix of morphine and scopolamine and early results were so promising that by the early 20th century the method had been adopted in the USA and Canada.

Our own Twilight Sleep Home opened in 1917 on Henrietta Street in Old Trafford and moved to Westonby sometime in 1921 or early 1922.  It advertised itself as offering “Painless Childbirth” and featured regularly in the classified section of the Manchester Guardian until 1927.  During those ten years it’s name varied slightly but always retained Twilight Sleep.

And last night in a chance conversation I discovered someone who had been there and given birth to a daughter.  The woman is now in her mid 90s and so this will place the birth sometime in the 1940s which was later than I had thought.

The Westonby home does not feature after 1927 but its competitor on Upper Chorlton Road was still advertsining in 1936 after which it too vanished.

The answer might lie in the loss of faith in the medical practice.  As early as 1915 there had been deaths associated with the method and much mainstream medical opinion was at best luke warm. There were also stories of poor quality care and an absence of trained doctors and nurses as well as horror stories of women having to be strapped to the birthing beds.

It may also be that Westonby was too small it had only eleven rooms.  Then there would have been the cost.  I don’t have any figures yet but such care would not have come cheap and even though some nursing homes catered for poorer clients it is hard to see that this was a first choice for all but the comfortably well off.

Add to this by 1948 the Nationa Health Service may have made such places redundant.

Of course the key will be a conversation with the mother and a trawl of the street directories. My friend also remembered another Twilight Sleep Home somewhere in Trafford.

I have a feeling that Westonby has still more to reveal.

Pictures; advert from the Manchester Guardian, 1905 and April 6 1926, and what might be Westonby from the collection of Averil Kovacs

* Westonby, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Westonby
**Sales advert Manchester Guardian, 1905

The Woolwich I remember

I like this picture of Woolwich for lots or reasons, but not least because it is how I remember it with the buses negotiating their way past the market stalls and the crowds out looking for a bargain or just enjoying an afternoon in the square.

I have tried dating it but so far it is a pretty wide slot which starts at 1939 and runs through into the 1950s.

That said I don't think it will be later than 1960.

The key will be the bus which someone far more an expert than me will be able to identify.

I know it is an RT which were built for London Transport from 1939 onwards but they remained in service for decades.

Likewise it might be possible to date the make of the car and work out when it was registered but cars like buses have a habit of staying on the road for years which just leaves the building to our left in the main picture and the style of the clothes.

The directories will pinpoint the shop but men’s clothes remained fairly uniform from the 1930s well into the early 60s which just leaves the woman and her hat in the corner.

There is no evidence of blackout or other signs to link it to the war.
and the tram lines are missing so that I think will narrow it to the 1950s, which is just that bit more exciting given that this was the period I could have been there.*

All of that said it is quite clearly from a time well before now and what draws me to the photograph is the sheer bustle and the way the photographer  caught a moment

Pictures; Woolwich circa 1930s-50s, courtesy of Steve Bardrick.

* I just now await someone to put me right on tram routes through Woolwich.

Fish and chips on Richmond Street

This is Richmond Street forty-seven years ago.

Back then I still used it as a cut through from Minshull Street down to Chorlton Street and for a decade was a place I knew well.

I had washed up in the College of Commerce a decade earlier doing an arts degree along side trainee lawyers, accountants and heaps of night school courses. The place had just become part of newly created Manchester Polytechnic, although it still felt like a separate entity miles from the other two colleges.

And that may have increased our sense of isolation or independence which led to its irreverent nickname of the College of Knowledge.

Sadly those not in the know called it ColCom.

That said in the late 1960s and 70s the students Union had hosted some memorable groups which added to our sense of feeling a tad special.

I don’t remember the fish and chip shop, but I will have fallen across the café on Chorlton Street, which was never as popular as Bert’s its close rival on Whitworth Street.

The Minshull Street Courts are still there, although they closed briefly just a decade after I took the picture.

But all those untrendy, traditional little outlets like the transport cafés have gone, and with it a bit of my youth.

Location, Richmond and Canal Street

Pictures; Richmond and Canal Street, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson  

Dr. Cathreine Chisholm C.B.E. M.D. F.R.C.P. another story from Tony Goulding

Catherine Chisholm was the first woman (1) to obtain a medical degree from Manchester University which she received on Tuesday 28th July 1904.

Dr. Catherine Chisholm in 1912

She became a major force in the development of children’s medicine, particularly neo-natal care.

Catherine was born on 2nd January 1878 in Radcliffe Nr. Bury, Lancashire and was baptised in the town’s St. Thomas’s Church on 20th February 1878. She was the eldest of the four daughters of Kenneth Mckenzie, a physician and surgeon from Munlochy, Ross-shire, Scotland and his wife Mary (née Thornley) the eldest daughter of a local cotton manufacturer. 

Catherine lived her early life in Pilkington, Bury, Lancashire where her father had a surgery at Rock House, Stand Lane. She entered Owens College, Manchester University in 1895, being granted a B.A. degree in classics before entering the medical school. 

Following her graduation Dr, Chisholm’s found obtaining a post difficult as most hospitals remained reluctant to appoint female doctors. 

As a result, she had to move to London where she worked for a year at the Clapham Maternity Hospital, an institution which employed only women. In 1905 she was briefly the resident medical officer for the Eldwick Cottage Sanatorium for Women and Children, Bingley, Nr. Bradford, Yorkshire (West Riding). During 1906 Catherine returned to Manchester and started her own G.P. practice mainly treating female students at the university.   

Also in July 1908, she was appointed to a new post as Medical Inspector for the Manchester High School for Girls. a position she remained in 40 years. (2) For this purpose, she occupied a building at 339, Oxford Road, Manchester. This was to serve as the family home or the best part of two decades. Catherine lived here with her mother, Mary, (until her death on 6th July 1918) and her only surviving sister Alice Thornley. Her father had died on 23rd October 1902 and both her younger sisters died in infancy; Flora McDonald aged 2years and 6 months in 1883 and Eleanor aged 15 months in 1884.

Manchester Babies Hospital, Burnage Lane, Burnage (28/4/1924)

It was possibly these traumatic events in her early years which prompted her future work on the healthcare of babies and children in general. In any case she was the driving force behind the opening of The Manchester Babies Hospital (3) on 4th August 1914. 

Despite, an inauspicious opening date, the new facility thrived; initially at 77, Clarendon Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, then on Slade Lane, Levenshulme before moving to accommodate the growing number of patients to larger premises, Cringle Hall, Burnage Lane, Manchester while retaining the original building on Slade Lane.

It was funded in part by Manchester Corporation and fund-raising efforts by local prominent women such as Olga Hertz, Sheila Simon, and Margaret Ashton, the latter being one of the institution’s vice-presidents while Mrs. Simon was the“chairman” of its committee.

Manchester Babies Hospital List of Officers 1916-17

Alongside her hospital work, Dr Chisholm was active in the promotion of the education of young mothers in health and hygiene as a preventative measure. She was also a pioneer in the development of women’s sport, according to her entry on Wikipedia this began when she was instrumental in the founding of the University of Manchester’s Women Students’ and Athletics’ Union in 1899.

Outside of Health, Catherine was also a supporter of women’s suffrage and involved in disarmament campaigns.

Besides addressing various meetings in support of these causes, she variously hosted meetings of the local society of National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies at her home on Oxford Road in November 1912 and June 1914, assisted in the establishment of a new Suffrage Club in Ancoats,   Manchester, and acted as the co-treasurer of the Manchester group supporting the nationwide “Pilgrimage for Peace” in 1926. 

N.U.W.S.S. Poster 1913

Dr Chisholm made a more direct appeal for peace when she addressed a meeting at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on Monday 18th October 1920 which was convened to welcome a delegation of British women, including Dr. Chisholm, returning from investigating the impact of the war in Ireland. After the women had reported back on the material damage and some graphic descriptions of the behaviour of Britain’s irregular soldiers (“The Black and Tans”) she proposed the following motion, which was subsequently passed.

 “That this meeting of Manchester citizens urges the government to set free all Irish political prisoners and offer a truce, during which all armed forces shall be withdrawn and the keeping of order be placed in the hands of the Irish local elected bodies- thus creating conditions under which the Irish people may determine their own form of government.”

 Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Dr Chisholm continued to lecture widely on medical issues and speak out on social issues. Her interests were varied, warning against overindulgence in tea and coffee, opposition to aggressive advertising aimed at young men by the brewery industry, promoting the importance of fresh air in the care of babies and exercise for schoolchildren, particularly girls among others. She was particularly keen that girls should be educated about their reproductive system.

  In pursuing these affairs, she was quick to embrace the new opportunity available through radio broadcasts.

 In the George V New Year’s Honours list of 1935, she was awarded the C.B.E. citing her rôle as consulting physician at the Manchester Northern Hospital for Women and Children.

  Also in January 19355, she was one of the inaugural signatories in the formation of a Manchester branch off the National Council for Civil Liberties. She was also a member of the Manchester Gaels and the Soroptimists.

 Catherine was certainly a local celebrity in much demand to appear at fundraising events, especially for child welfare and medical charities. There was, however, a downside to her fame as she became an early victim of “identity theft”. The Manchester Evening News of 11th May 1936 reported the case of an Ardwick woman, Mary Fellows, who was imprisoned for 6 weeks at Manchester Magistrates Court; she had obtained  three meals on credit by pretending she was Dr. Chisholm and saying she was short of cash as she was hurrying to perform an operation. In her evidence Catherine stated that, “she knew Fellows quite well and had had trouble with her for many years, through posing and ordering things in her name.”

Catherine never married and continued living with her sister on Oxford Road before moving to 34, Broadway, Didsbury, Manchester in 1923. She died there on Monay 21st July 1952 and was cremated at Manchester Crematorium on Thursday 24th July. Her sister Alice Thornley predeceased her on 15th February 1945. 

Dr Chisholm’s estate was valued at £17,790 -9s –3d (equal to £449,650 today).

Pictures: -Dr. Catherine Chisholm (1912) portrait, unknown artist m 72643 and Manchester Babies Hospital, Burnage Lane, Burnage Manchester City Council’s City Engineers Departmentm 52817 images courtesy of Manchester Libraries. Creative Commons Attribution International (CC BY 4.0) licence, Manchester Babies Hospital List of Officers 1916-17, 'Image provided by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester’  N.U.W.S.S. Poster 1913 in public domain. By NUWSS - Original publication: published by the NUWSS in 1913 in the UK. Immediate source: British Library http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/makeanimpact/suffragettes/large12625.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45443664

Notes: -

1) Dr. Chisholm shared this distinction with another woman Dr Catherine Corbett, who herself has a fascinating story which I hope to write of in a future post.

2) Catherine’s sister Alice Thornley was also a member of staff at Manchester High School for Girls; she taught French there for more than twenty years and was also the school’s medical clerk.

3) The Manchester Babies Hospital was renamed The Duchess of York Hospital in 1935. This honour was bestowed after she had opened a new nurses’ home and a medical wing on 10th July 1935. The Duchess, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon soon become George VI's queen consort and on his death was for 50 years simply "The Queen Mother".

Ghosts in Chorlton .... on Wilbraham Road

Now I have Sonoe Shimizu to thank for this picture of what was once the chemist on the corner of Wilbraham and Albany Roads.

Ghost chemist and future coffee shop, 2025

And the ghost sign announcing “Dispensing Chemist” has been hidden for a very long time.

That said the property has always been a chemist dating back to the beginning of the 20^th century.

Originally the entire row of shops known as Highfield which runs from Albany Road to Keppel Road had been private dwellings fronted by small gardens with access to the houses by a short flight of steps.

And some of the shops including our chemist were still on two levels with the rear of premises raised above the shop floor.

Mr. Flint's chemist shop, circa 1910

Highfield, I suspect had been planned and built as town houses with an eye to attracting residents who wanted to use the new Chorlton Railway Station which offered a quick service to and from central Manchester.

The first conversions in Highfield from residential to business use were in place by 1903, but the chemists were a little later, and by 1909 it is listed as belonging to “Francis B Flint Chemist”.

Shopping at the chemist in 1935

In its time it has been a Co-op Chemist and briefly one of the Everest chain, but as the new window signage indicates it is to become a coffee shop.

And that really is it, other than to thank Sonoe who sent me the images with the message, "Hi Andrew, I live locally in Chorlton and saw this this morning. It’s opposite Morrisons. Thought you might be interested”, which of course I was.

I too had been following the conversion work but never chose to look up and spot the ghost sign.

So there is a lesson for me.

The promise of change, 2025

The signage is a fine example of how shops once advertised their business and I hope they retain it.

And for those puzzled over the term ghost sign, it refers to products,  descriptions of businesses and individuals which longer exist

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; ghost signs on Wilbraham Road, courtesy of Sonoe Shimizu, and in its former glory around 1910 from the Lloyd Collection and in 1935 A.H. Clarke, m18231 respectively, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

  

That remarkable painting of Eltham Palace .........

I like this water colour of Eltham Palace by my old friend Peter Topping.

The painting, 2025

Like many people I continue to be fascinated by Eltham Palace along with the Tudor Barn, its more humble companion just down the road.

So, if you grew up in Well Hall and were interested in history then these two old buildings were special.

Back in the 1960s the Palace was only open on Thursdays and Sundays which meant timing a visit to the school holidays or a Sunday.

But admission was free and from May to October the doors were open from 11am to 7pm and in the winter from 11am till 4, which gave plenty of scope to wander the Great Hall and indulge in shock and awe, made all the more so when I discovered the Palace's history and its place in Shakespeare's plays.

The guide book, 1958

All of which meant I could often be found on Thursday afternoons standing below the great wooden roof letting my imagination roll away.

Later still as I became less interested in the doing's of royalty and more in the lives of those who worked to keep the posh people happy I started to explore what it meant to be a kitchen servant, a laundry woman or the man in charge of the cole house.

Not an easy piece of research but I was helped by a delightful little book from the Ministry of Works published in 1958 for one shilling which acted as the "Official Guide-book [to] Eltham Palace Kent" 

Not that the author "D.E. Strong, M.A., D.Phil, formerly Assistant Inspector of Ancient Monument" gave any time in his description to our kitchen servant,  laundry woman or the man in charge of the cole house, but in the back of the book there are two plans based on the work of John Thorpe, who was the Elizabethan surveyor.

And there amongst all the important state rooms are the places that kept the Palace working, from the Slaughter House, Cole House, Pastry, Spicery and "My Lord's Butry"

The plan, 1958, based on the two Elizabethan plans

Too which I can add that series of fine line drawings of the Palace in a state of decay in the 18th century when it was a home to cows and other live stock which appear from time to time on the blog.

All of which is a far cry from Peter's painting made all the more remarkable because he is from Preston, has lived in Manchester for half a century and only knows of the palace's existence because I wax lyrical about the place on cold winter evenings in the Horse and Jockey, that Inn on the Green.

And just as Peter left Preston, I left Well Hall for Manchester in 1969,but still miss Eltham, its Palace and the Progress Estate where I gew up.

So much so that everyso often Peter comes up with another painting of home.* 

Painting; Eltham Palace, Peter Topping www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Pictures; Plan and front cover from Eltham Palace Kent, Ministry of Works Official Guide-book, 1958

*Painting Well Hall and Eltham, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Painting%20Well%20Hall%20and%20Eltham

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

The Arndale …. a night club, three lost buildings and a house in Chorlton-cum-Hardy

I never knew that maze of streets, squares and courts which existed between Market and Cannon Street and which were bounded by High Street to the east and Corporation Street to the west.

That maze of streets, squares and courts, 1951

They were indeed a maze, with some of the courts only accessed by narrow alleyways which led off from almost equally narrow streets.

They vanished when the Arndale was built, leaving the curious to search for them on old maps, photographs, and in newspaper clippings, or trawling through official reports of the Police and the City Council.

As early as 1942 the Corporation signaled its intention to redevelop the area, and in 1970 compulsorily purchased eight acres, with construction work for the Arndale beginning the following year.

Of course, there will be plenty of people who still remember that pre-Arndale warren, which included places like, Marsden Square, Cromford Court, and Cock Pit Hill

But memories fade, added to which there will be plenty more who have no knowledge of what now lies under the Arndale.

The Wishing Well, 1967

What set me off today, was not that maze of streets which I have written about already*, but a group of three unremarkable looking buildings photographed in 1967.

They stood on the corner of New Brown Street and Cannon Street, and what first drew me in, was the entrance to the Wishing Well which occupied cellar of Kitchen warehouse.

According to that excellent site, The Pubs of Manchester, the Wishing Well was  a “restaurant-cum-nightclub …. Originally the 'City Restaurant', the Wishing Well was so-named due to a shaft (and some bones) that was unearthed in the basement in 1954 by an electrician.

The owners thought it was a well, so they made a feature of it, building a faux brick wall round it, complete with winch and bucket on a rope.  Not to mention the model skeleton they hung next to it which must have gone down well with diners and drinkers.

The three buildings, 1967

The Wishing Well became a popular late-night haunt, more of a bar than an eatery, and at weekends it became Cord Disco, named after the owner's American car”.**

There is much more, but rather than steal some else’s research I suggest you follow the links.

Leaving me to focus on Walton’s Buildings.

The name Walton crops up across the Rate Books in the 1830s, tied to properties in the area around Cannon Street and New Brown Street, with a specific reference to Walton’s Buildings in 1838, and in the maps during the next two decades.

Walton's Buildings, 1967

What is even more intriguing is that the one in our picture comes as a collection of properties located either side of Marsden Court, which was accessed through the entrance beside the doorway of Walton’s Buildings.

And in the fullness of time I shall go looking for Mr. or Mrs. Walton.

But for now, I am equally fascinated by the last of the three buildings.  This was number 44 Cannon Street, which is listed on Goads Fire Insurance map of the late 19th century as a “warehouse & factory” , which in 1911 was home to the business of Albert E. Moore shirt manufacturer”.

Not that there is anything over remarkable in that, this was after all, an area full of small factories and warehouses.

So, I wasn’t surprised that when our picture was taken in 1967,  number 44, was home to the firm of I Shevloff who had been trading in textiles at various locations since the early 1920s.

 Shevloff, 44 Canono Street, 1922

But what makes I. Shevloff a little different is that I have been following the family’s fortunes for a while, having first come across them when they took up residence at 22 Edge Lane in Chorlton around about the time they opened their first business in Manchester.***

Both Mr. and Mrs. Shevloff were originally from London, although he had been born in the Russian part of Poland as had Mrs. Shevloff’s parents.

And in the course of telling their story I encountered a number of people who remembered visiting the warehouse as children and one who could describe Mr. and Mrs. Shefflov.

All of which confirms that simple observation that history is messy and to misquote the film, is a little like a box of chocolates, because you don’t quite know what you are going to get.

22 Edge Lane, 2019

And I have to say just got a bit messier, but just that bit more interesting, because no sooner had the story gone live, Brenda posted a comment about the Hidden Well, where she worked in the 1950s and 60s.

“I worked as a waitress at the Wishing Well in the late 50s and early 60s. 

The owners were the Britain’s. 

Loved that place. So sorry it isn’t there any more.  

As they say in the article, it had a fake well. 

And back with the Wishing Well, 1967

There were 2 sides - the one where the well was which was a quite upscale coffee bar/restaurant that was open until quite late. 

The other side was only open during the day for lunch and dinner. Old Mrs Britain was a great pastry cook. Made delicious deserts. I was just there on Saturdays and in the holidays when I was off school.
Really fun place to work”.

All of which takes me full circle, because we started with the Wishing Well, and have finished with Brenda’ memories, and in between met Mr. Shevloff who no doubt passed it every working day, leaving me to speculate on whether he called in.  But that, as well as being very unhistorical is a story for another time.

Location; Manchester and Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; New Brown Street and Cannon Street, 1951, from the OS map of Manchester, 1951, the three properties, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection",
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY and 22 Edge Lane, the home of the Shevloff’s, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Pubs- The Stories Behind The Doors-City Centre, Peter Topping & Andrew Simpson, 2016

** The Pubs of Manchester, http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.com/2010/03/wishing-well-cord-disco-new-brown.html


***At 22 Edge Lane; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/At%2022%20Edge%20Lane