Outside Beech Road Police Station ........ revealing a little of the life of PC Frederick George Ross

This is Police Constable Frederick George Ross standing with his colleagues outside the police station on Beech Road.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when the picture was taken but one source has suggested 1925.*

And that would have made PC Ross forty-seven years old.

He had joined the city force in 1904 and by  1910 was living on Priory Avenue before moving to Whalley Avenue.

Of the named officers he is the one we know most about and that is as much a bit of luck as it is research.

After all if he had not been recognised and his name added to the picture we would not have been able to discover his story.

But with a name a search of the police employment records and the census returns not only located him but provided me with the name of his wife and daughter and his own place of birth.

PC Ross had married Rebecca Jane Lawson in 1909 in Bolton and their daughter Nora was born the following year.

Like all such stories the detail is even more fascinating for while Nora had been born in Bolton she was registered at the Chorlton office and baptised at St Clements in the May of 1910 which is how we know the family were living at Priory Avenue.

Almost a year later they were on Whalley Avenue and a search of the directories will reveal when they moved from that address.

But that is not quite the end of the story because in the course of doing the research I came across a relative who had posted a series of pictures, one of Frederick and Rebecca and two showing PC Ross during police inspections one of which is dated to 1921.

And according to this source Mrs Ross was in Ireland by 1925 where she died in 1949 followed by her husband fifteen years later.

In time there will be more but for now that is all but it is a lesson in how it is possible to discover a family story.

Nor is that all, because looking at the police records what is interesting is the number of officers who were born in Ireland and Scotland, a trend which goes back beyond 1904 when Chorlton voted to join the city.

Before that date we had been policed by the Lancashire Constabulary who were responsible for building the station in 1885.

Just six years later the officer in charge was a Sergeant Milne from Ireland assisted by two PCs from Scotland and a decade on with  Sergeant Milne there were officers from Ireland and Gloucestershire as well as Lancashire.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; PC Ross, 1875-1963 from Police officers outside Beech Road Police Station circa 1925 from the Lloyd Collection

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 20 ........... completing the picture

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now we lived in 294 Well Hall Road for thirty years, and I now know who lived in it back to 1915 when it was built and for most of the years since we sold it.

The story of our house In Well Hall began some years ago and followed on from similar projects on the one that I live in now and one in Peckham.

But Well Hall is special to me and my sisters and I guess for all those who have looked after it for the last century and a bit.

All I need now is to complete the missing years from 1994 to 1999.

I could be accused of just hoovering up names, but not so, because each of the residents will have a story and that story in part will be about the house.

So that is it.

Over the next few weeks I will be going back to the list of those that occupied 294 and exploring their lives.

As ever it will never be intrusive but just add to our knowledge of one house in Well Hall and how it reflects the story of the estate, and the area.

A few years ago the son of the people who sold the house to us made contact from Canada, where they migrated and only yesterday I was talking to the new owners.

It will prove fun to complete the story and on the way I may make new friends and learn more about our house.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; the front and back garden of our house on Well Hall Road, circa 1970, from the Simpson collection

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Lost tramway signs ………………

Now there will be those who shake their heads in dismay at this picture of a Manchester Corporation Tramways sign and mutter how boring.

But not so, because it is a fine example of one of our lost bits of street furniture.*

I have no date, or location, but I like it.

Location; somewhere in Manchester

Picture; Manchester Corporation Tramways, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

*Street furniture, lost and found, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Street%20Furniture%20lost%20and%20saved

On Beech Road 44 years ago looking for a second hand telly and electric fire

This is another of those images of the more recent past and one that plenty of people will remember.

Picture; from the collection of Lawrence Beedle, circa 1980

Paradise Walk ……… almost a lost and forgotten street of Manchester

Paradise Walk ought to be one of those twisty little byways which to misquote the poem is “half as old as time”.

Store Street, 1920 looking for Paradise Walk

It was a place I had never come across despite many happy hours wandering the area between Ducie Street and Store Street.

It was Sean Kelly who alerted me to its presence today, with “Could I suggest Paradise Walk, off Ducie Street, Andrew? It’s a sort of short cut and I suspect a lot of history......”, adding “it's been well poshed up, relatively, since around 2000. Wonder whether the Central Library archives have a photo”.

On a warm summer’s day with little else to do, I can see its attractions, because it starts as a narrow pathway sandwiched between a tall building,  before joining the towpath of the Ashton Canal and exiting by a set of steps onto Store Street.

But as delightful as the walk can be, you do have to look for it, and it’s easy to miss both starting points.  

The area in 1894

The Ducie Street entrance is almost opposite where Ducie Street joins Aqueduct Street, while access from Store Street is up a flight of stone steps beside the arch of the aqueduct which carries the canal over the road.

Still I thought I was dealing with one of those very old routes, and mused that here could be all that was left of a closed court which long ago had lost its houses.

But not so, it does not appear on the OS map for 1849, Adshead’s map of 1851, or subsequent ordinance survey maps into the 1950s.   

In 1951 at the Ducie Street end there was a Whittles Croft, which sixty years earlier had been Whittles  Croft Wharf.

And yes, once a long time ago that stretch of Ducie Street which twists away up to Pigeon Street was Whittles Croft and Mather Street. 

So I await those in possession of more recent maps to pinpoint when Paradise Walk emerged.

The area in 1851

If I had to guess, I reckon it will be sometime at the turn of the century when work was undertaken on the canal ….. but I could be wrong …… probably am wrong.

Sorry Sean.

Location; Ducie Street/Store Street

Pictures; Store Street, 1920 looking for Paradise Walk, T Brooks, m10640,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Ducie Street/Store Street, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

 

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 18 ........... driving the coach to the Italian Lakes

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now it is that time of year again and we are thinking of a summer holiday.

It’s an attractive thought given that the rain is coming down like stair rods.

Of course not that we ever went far when we lived in Well Hall.

From spring till the end of the summer dad drove coaches across mainland Europe from France to Italy with an option on Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

It was a job he had dome since the 1920s and from sometime around 1952 began talking discerning travellers on holidays, seeing the sights and getting a flavour of Brussels, Paris and Milan.

I say faraway places but for most people back in the 1950s and early 60s the Italian Lakes was far away.

All of which left me and my sisters with holidays in Derby with our grandparents.

Today, for us Italy has a special place given that half the family are Italian and so it is a natural choice most years as a place to visit.

And that of course got me thinking of the people who also lived in 294 from when it was built in 1915 till we moved settled there in the March of 1964.

The previous owners immigrated to Canada and until I have done lots more research on the other families I think Canada will be the furthest destination for any of the previous occupants.

Not that I am surprised.  Holiday opportunities for most people during the 20th century were limited and it was not till the coming of cheap air flights and package holidays that most of us could contemplate that far away break in the sun.

Location; Well Hall & Chorlton

Pictures;  Il Broletto from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Eighty-six years in the story of the Rec on Beech Road

I don’t usually do then and now pictures, and certainly not without a story, but today I shall.

Here are two both from the Wilton end of the Rec.

They are separated by about 80 years, and in the interval we had a bowling green which many remember, but not me.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; on the Rec, sometime in 1900 from the Lloyd Collection and again in 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 17 ........... the Gas Board

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

It is funny how the names of things stay with you, long after events have rendered them obsolete and consigned to history.

So, it is with the Gas Board, which was created just a year before I was born, and lasted until I was fully grown.

To be accurate there were twelve gas boards covering the country, and they had been created in 1948 by the Labour Government which nationalized the 1,062 privately owned and municipal gas companies.  They were  the Eastern, East Midlands, Northern, North Eastern, North Thames, North West, Scottish, Southern, South Eastern, South West, Wales, and West Midlands. Each area board was divided into geographical groups or divisions which were often further divided into smaller districts.

Ours was the South Eastern Gas Board, and here is the meter card for our house.

Not that we paid for our gas by slot meter.  Dad had switched to paying quarterly, and so this payment card belonged to one of the previous owners, who was a G. Broome.

That said I do remember the chap who came to read the meter at regular intervals, a practice which lasted well into this century.

After which we opted to read it ourselves and send the reading in online and this in turn was replaced by a device which did it for us, and now by Hive, that box of tricks which pretty much does it all.

Despite all this buzzy technology I have never quite got round to referring to our gas provider by their name, and still talk of the Gas Board.

But then I also still talk about the wireless when everyone else calls it a radio.


Location; Well Hall

Pictures; the Gas Board  Slot Meter Record Card, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Out to East Didsbury from Albert Square ……. on the new tram

I say the new tram, because quite clearly this wasn’t the old fashioned tall stately tram which rattled its way around the city at the start of the last century.

This was the new tram car.

The first  of which was completed in the March of 1930.  By the end of the year another eleven were in service.

In all 38 were built during the next two years, with the last of them appearing in October 1932.*

They were the Pullman, or more commonly called Pilcher, after Mr. Robert Stuart Pilcher, who took over as General Manager of Manchester Corporation Tramways in 1929.

Location; Manchester







Picture; Albert Square to East Didsbury, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

*The Manchester Tramways, Yearsley, Ian & Groves Peter, 1988

Remembering the Spanish Civil War

 

Travels with a badge collection ……. three decades of silly and angry protest

Today I have been looking at my old badge collection which starts in 1966 and peters out in the late 1990s.

Upset Her, 1980

Sadly, there are only 70 or so left, having lost, discarded or given away a heap more.

Smirks Against Travolta, circa 1980

Some are campaign badges, some reflect contemporary issues and a few are just silly like my “Smirks against Travolta” badge.

And the equally silly "Dog Lovers Against the Bomb".

Thinking back to the campaign badges which cover about half of the collection the tally of successful against failures is about even.

One day I will explore each campaign but for now I am drawn to those directed against the Tory Governments from 1979 to 1997, and in particular those which featured Mrs. Thatcher.

She was Prime Minister from 1979 till 1990, and she divided opinion and for some of us still does.  

That said it is important I think to recognise that she was in a sense the figurehead for a series of political and economic ideas and a powerful section of the establishment.

Remember The Milk, 1971

Given the majorities the Conservatives commanded in Parliament those political and economic ideas were steadily advanced, and I guess that explains the large number of badges directed against Mrs. Thatcher.  

Some in the collection predate her time as Prime Minister and harp back to her time as Education Secretary in the early 1970s but most were produced in the 1980s.

And it is as well to remember just how the simple badge machine revolutionized the business of protest.

No longer did you have to rely on the expensive and old-fashioned process of producing enamelled metal badges, instead you could turn out hundreds in a  relatively short time at home changing the message and the issue as was needed.

Most of the finished products were unsophisticated and at times quite rudimentary but they did the business. Looking back at mine I marvel at just how many campaigns there were that I slid into.

But I suspect my involvement in many was just to buy the badge, and wearing it till the next issue burst forth.

Swamp Thatcher, 1984

Although with those directed against Mrs. Thatcher I was pretty persistent in showing them off on coats and jumpers.

With the passage of time, I do question the degree to which they personalized politics and while some were funny many more were vicious.

Not that such attacks are new, you only have to go back to the works of James Gillray and William Hogarth in the 18th century to appreciate that the caricatures of Mrs. Thatcher come from a long line of political satire.

And that is it.

Less a statement on today’s politics or my own opinions and more a reflection of what once was, which is just as it should be for a history blog.

PS The Milk Snatcher’s badge was being given away at “The Milk Snatcher’s Ball” held at UMIST sometime in 1971.  Equally notable on the night was the sight of me and my flat mate Jack wearing baby doll nighties which we had borrowed from the girls in the flat above. But that story is for another day.

Dog Lovers Against the Bomb, 1984

Location; some time between 1970 and 1988.

Pictures; Upset Her, 1980, Labour Party, Smirks Against Travolta, circa 1980, Remember the Milk Snatcher, 1971 unknown, Swamp Thatcher, the SWP circa 1984, Dog Lovers Against the Bomb, circa 1984, unknown, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The painting …. the actor …. and the exhibition

This is Ira Aldridge and my Wikipedia tells me he “was an American-born British actor, playwright, and theatre manager, known for his portrayal of Shakespearean characters”.*

 Ira Aldridge, 1826

He was born in1807 and emigrated to Liverpool in 1824 and by the following year was performing on the London stage.

At this point I could launch into a detailed description of his life and achievements, but I would only be copying from Wikipedia and even if I cobbled something together from several sources, I doubt that I could really call it research ….. it would still in truth be copying.

At the Threatre Royal with Mr. Aldridge, 1856

So, I won’t.  Suffice to say that by following the link you can get the lot.

Instead, I will just pick up on his condemnation of slavery which he made in several speeches while touring in Coventry and which according to various sources inspired the residents to petition Parliament to abolish slavery.**

Now that I think is worthy of some research.

And as you do, I went looking for him in Manchester, and yes, this portrait is in the City Art Gallery but more exciting because it is a bit of original research, I found that he performed here in the city.

The Queen's Theatre, 1850

On May 12th, 1849, the Manchester Guardian reported that he was performing at the Queen’s Theatre, Spring Gardens and seven years later at the Theatre Royal.***

At the Queen's Theatre, 1849 in the company of Mr. Aldridge

I have yet to uncover a review, but it will only be a matter of time, but I know the old Theatre Royal and found the Queen’s Theatre on the corner of Spring Gardens and York Street. Alas the Queen’s has gone having been demolished in the 1860s for a warehouse.

All of this was unknown to me until I met Ian Nickson who is involved in a fascinating exhibition at Central Ref exploring the connection between Shakespeare and Manchester.

It explores "the story of how seven personalities transformed Manchester into a global centre of Shakespearean theatre in the Victorian era and reveals present-day evidence of the city’s innovative engagement with the works of Shakespeare”.

The Shakespeare Windowm, Central Ref

One of the seven is my old chum Ira Aldridge along with “local businessman John Knowles who commissioned the Theatre Royal on Peter Street in 1845, actor-manager Charles Calvert and Rosa Grindon who forged a career as the Victorian age’s leading female Shakesperean scholar.”

There are more but where would be the fun in recording all of them when dear reader you can discover them for your self at  Shakespeare and Manchester: A Victorian Powerhouse Exhibition Manchester?

It is on at  Central Library on the First Floor Display Cases from February 12th 2026 untill May 30th 2026.

I have got my personal tour booked with Ian for next Wednesday, but given that it is on till the end of May there will be plenty of opportunities to visit it again and again and again.

For more details contact:

Ian Nickson. Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester, ian.nickson-2@manchester.ac.uk

Kattie Kincaid, Project Lead for the Shakespearean Garden,  kattiekincaid@hotmail.com

Location; Manchester Central Library, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 5PD

At the Ref, 2014

Pictures; Ira Aldridge, 1826 painted by James Northcote, Manchester Art Gallery Accession number 1882.2, advert for The Theatre Royal 1856, the Queen’s Theatre 1850, from Adshead’s map of Manchester,  courtesy of Digital Archives Association http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/  The Shakespeare Window in the entrance of the Central Library and Central Reference Library, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ira Aldridge, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge

**First black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge honoured BBC News, August 3, 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-40802072

***Queen’s Theatre, Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1849 Theatre Royal, Manchester, Manchester Guardian July 5th, 1856

Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers in what is now Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The discovery of the “slaughter house” was not an accident and came out of the research on the bars of Chorlton for the book Chorlton pubs and bars.



Location; Chorlton

Picture; Beech Road circa 1900 from the Lloyd collection

Half a century of change in St Peter’s Square

Now this is one of the scenes of St Peter’s Square which has gradually changed over time.

I can’t be sure when the picture was taken but it was added to Valentine’s card catalogue in 1937 and will have to date from after 1934 when work on the Town Hall Extension was started.

That said the building was not completed till 1938 which means that when our photograph was made bits of the new Town Hall had yet to be finished.

Since then every decade some of what you can see has vanished, and what replaced it hasn’t always stayed the course.

Since I arrived in 1969 the building behind the tram has gone and  was for a while the Peace Garden and will presently be the relocated metro stop, which is also a reminder that the square lost its trams in the late 1940s and has seen them return.

The white building on the other corner of Mosley Street has also disappeared as has the building which fronted the parked cars on the right of the picture.  It went in favour of that utilitarian building called Elizabeth House which lasted just over forty years.

More recently we had the platforms of the tram stop outside the Library which has come and gone and the relocation of the Cenotaph.

And for those wanting more, Central Ref and the Town Hall Extension has undergone major refurbishment and changes reflecting what we want of public buildings in the 21st century.

So there you have it, most of this won’t be new to many but for some it may be a total revelation.

And no sooner  had I posted the story and  Robert offered up his own image taken from the Midland Hotel just a few days ago.

It is a supberb contrast to what our unknown photographer captured almsot eighty years ago.

Location; Manchester

Picture; St Peter’s Square, circa 1937, from the collection of David Harrop and in 2016 courtesy of Robert Moores

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... the plays wot mum wrote

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Well Hall Road, 2014

For as long as I can remember our mum wrote plays, short stories and worked on a novel about life in south east London.

She had begun writing in the RAF during the last war when as a typist she had all that a writer could need ........ spare time, a typewriter, and paper.

All of which were the building blocks to give full vent to her vivid imagination.

On those long quiet moments on an RAF station in Lincolnshire she wrote about what she experienced including the loss of life and the fears and triumphs of the air crews and supporting teams.

Mum and friend circa 1942

Later as we were growing up she tried her hand at writing plays discovering there was a market for the three act play which was aimed specifically at women’s groups.

The basic requirement was that most of the parts had to be for women, and while the plot could be anything from a comedy to a murder there had to be opportunities for women of all ages.

I can’t now remember how many she produced but I know it was a fair few, although sadly none of the published plays have survived and as yet I can’t find any reference to them anywhere.

But we do have the manuscript of the book she was writing on along with some short stories.

Looking back we never thought it was unusual and yet here was a woman whose formal education had ended at 14, and who had spoken only German until she was three years old.

She began work in a local silk factory and went onto have a succession of jobs until the war swept her up and deposited her in “bomber county.”

Later after moving to London she began writing again, using at first a battered old typewriter before acquiring a slick “Oliveti” model.

And as someone who uses a computer all the time I marvel at those who wrote using a typewriter which doesn’t allow the instant use of the delete button, the facility to cut and paste, or either a word or spell check.

Mum in 1949

On the other hand it has left me with a collection of paper copies of her literary output.

The manuscripts maybe on flimsy paper, now are over laden with a musty smell and tinged with yellow but they offer up a link to mum, more powerful than an electronic text.

That said the computer and social media have offered up a huge opportunity for people to record and share  their memories, and publish both photographs and paintings which might otherwise never have seen the light of day.

All of which demonstrates the amount of talent there is out there and by extension just how much of that talent in the past never saw the light of day.

By contrast on facebook and other sites people regularly post fine photographs which are as good as any “art work” and write in the most vivid and direct way about growing up and the places that mean so much too them.

And yes I am sure that if mum were still writing today she would have embraced them all.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; 294, courtesy of Chrissy Rose, 2015, and mum from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

So why did the Jacobite’s have the best songs?

Now for those who don’t know, the Jacobite cause was the forlorn attempt  to restore the Stuart royal family to the throne.

And in the process do away with the Hanoverian’s who had assumed the throne in 1714.

There had been two attempts by the Jacobite’s to achieve this reassertion of ownership in 1715 and again in 1745.

The first involved James Francis Edward Stuart, referred to by some as the Old Pretender, and the second by Charles Edward Stuart, variously known as the Young Pretender, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Now I was brought up on the romance of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the last Jacobite attempt to regain the throne for the Stuarts, which isn’t surprising since our family only crossed the border into England at the start of the last century, and ours was a long journey south from the east Highlands.

So, I grew up with songs of that Jacobite rebellion, from those chronicling the brave Highland clans to the lament at the defeat at Culloden, and the departure of the Young Pretender.*

They still make wonderful listening but hide the reality of the savage aftermath of the last battle, the feudal nature of the Highlands and the betrayal of the cause by the Prince himself who left the Jacobite’s to their fate and died in Rome in 1788.

And of course, you have to question the whole escapade which was designed to substitute one dynasty for another, but was bound up with the dominance of England and the Lowland Scots, and today by the renewed interest in Scottish independence set against the huge chasm which is Brexit.

But those songs still resonate today, while the anti Jacobite ones have faded from popular culture.

So why is this? 

I suppose because the Jacobite cause was lost, and the repression that followed was so savage that there is that nostalgic lament for what might have been tied up by the romantic image of Bonnie Prince Charlie, which was then worked on in the 19th century when the Jacobites were no longer a threat and so it became “safe” to treat them as that romantic and lost cause, which has been sustained by an appeal to Scottish nationalism.

Added to which the tunes are very good and made better by the addition in some cases of the pipes.

That said not all of them date from 1745, or the immediate after years.

I listen regularly to a slew of Jacobite songs, but confess to only humming along to one anti Jacobite song which is the "Ye Jacobites by Name", which attacked the Jacobites  but was rewritten by Robert Burns  around 1791 giving a version with a more general, humanist anti-war, but nonetheless anti-Jacobite outlook.

So that is it …… answers on a postcard care of Rome.***

Pictures; "Gentlemen he cried, drawing his sword, I have thrown away the scabbard", from Scotland's story: a history of Scotland for boys and girls, Marshall, H. E. 1907, Manchester in the 18th century, from Shaw William, Manchester Old and New, 1894, and The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746

*Jacobite Songs by the Corries, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAEA7D750B5002C1F

**Lasting resting place of Bonnie Prince Charlie who escaped Scotland ...unlike most of his Jacobite supporters who ended up in the West Indies as indentured labour.

And the footnote, "The Acts of Union (Scottish Gaelic: Achd an Aonaidh) were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. 

They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain"

Acts of Union, 1707, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707

Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

 Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century or that her shop would have a passing connection with meat in the century to follow.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers when it was Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The row containing the "slaughterhouse" was part of the retail revolution which transformed how we shopped and a little over a century later  was the home of Primavera, which along with Cafe on the Green, the Italian Deli and the Lead Station heralded a second revolution which was the coming of the bars, cafes, and the shops selling "the interesting things". 

Location; Chorlton 

Picture; Beech Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 10........... from bread and dripping to Museli

This is the continuing story  of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now I suspect pretty much every generation thinks that there’s was the one which has seen the most profound change and I am the first to accept that mine has no monopoly on the new inventions, mould breaking fashions and seminal music.

But there is no doubt that those of us born just after the last war, who started school in the early 1950s and are just beginning to enter retirement have experienced a bewildering revolution in what we eat and how we prepare that food.

I will have been four when rationing was finally abandoned, and in the succeeding decades came to take for granted a huge range of new foods sourced from all over the world and delivered within hours of being harvested.

And of course with all that came a deluge of specialist utensils, ever larger cookers and the microwave.

All of which makes me think back to our tiny kitchen at 294, which was just large enough to take an old battered Cannon gas cooker, and small fridge which nestled either side of the sink.

In their wisdom the architects had provided a largish store cupboard under the stairs and here went the bulk of our dried and tinned food.

And what couldn’t be found the cupboard or the fridge was still bought fresh and eaten on the same day.

But the fridge is the key to the change.

In the 1950s the growing reliance on frozen food would lift some of the drudgery out of preparing food.

Now I still like washing carrots, peeling potatoes and shelling peas but for sheer speed nothing beats opening the packet of frozen peas.

And sixty years ago the adverts for frozen foods focused on that simple message that they were quick to use and because of the way they had been frozen on the day they were harvested were bound to be fresher than the peas and carrots which had made their way from the field via the market to the small greengrocer, whose turn over dictated that the produce might sit for days before it was bought.

Of course few people in 1956 had a fridge let along a freezer which was why the bags of frozen vegetables came in small sizes which were bought and used on the same day.

And in much the same way out went the old fashioned breakfast of porridge, eggs, bacon and toast in favour of the breakfast cereal.

Now these had been around since the 1930s, and there are ads in the collection for Corn Flakes and Rice Crispies, but the 50s offered up a new and exciting range, often marketed with a toy or other novelty and clearly aimed at the young.

Mother was quick off the mark to try the "new TV dinners  for one" which came out in the late 50s but equally died a death in our house as too expensive and not that nice.

Instead we reverted to simpler home cooked food but there was no going back on the changes that had happened.

As each of us left to set up our own homes the variety and the quantity of what we bought and ate just kept on growing.

But Dad preferred his tins, and on one memorable evening after I had cooked a pasta dish he smiled and said quietly that "it was good but  didn't really like  food messed about."

Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London


Pictures;  adverts for Birds Eye Foods and Sugar Puffs, from Woman’s Own, January 12 1956

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Shakespeare and Manchester: A Victorian Powerhouse Exhibition

This exhibition tells, for the first time, the story of how seven personalities transformed Manchester into a global centre of Shakespearean theatre in the Victorian era and reveals present-day evidence of the city’s innovative engagement with the works of Shakespeare.

These seven people operated in diverse fields - business, religion, theatre, architecture, academia, politics - but were united by their appreciation of Shakespeare’s cultural value and, as if imitating the seven bees atop Manchester’s coat of arms, they collaborated to create an urban, libertarian, distinctively Mancunian interpretation of Shakespeare’s works.

The exhibition also presents traces of Manchester’s Victorian influence that can still be found today – the portrait of Ira Aldridge in Manchester Art Gallery, the Shakespeare Window in the entrance of the Central Library, and the Shakespearean Garden in Platt Fields Park.

One aim of this exhibition is to raise awareness of the benefits to mental and physical health conferred by the Shakespearean Garden and to obtain funding for a full-time gardener who can secure the future of the garden for the benefit of the citizens of Manchester.

Manchester Central Library First Floor Display Cases February 12th 2026 - May 30th 2026

"For so work the honey-bees,

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts,

Where some like magistrates correct at home;

Others like merchants venture trade abroad;"

The Life of King Henry the Fifth (1.2.187-92)

For more details please contact:

Dr. Ian Nickson. Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester, ian.nickson-2@manchester.ac.uk

Kattie Kincaid Project Lead for the Shakespearean Garden, kattiekincaid@hotmail.com

Location; Manchester Central Library, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 5PD

Picture; The Shakespeare Window in the entrance of the Central Library